LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 

©lap. -,. ©n^rig^ fo 

Shelf. ■.^:§?:^^ 

UNITED STATES OF AMEEICA. 



The Cabin in The Clearing 



OTHER POEMS 



BENJAMIN ST^ARKER 




'^ SEP 27 iiv 



,o 



CHICAGO 

CHARLES H. KERR & COMPANY 

BOSTON : GEORGE H. ELLIS 

1887 






Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1887, by 

B. S. PARKER, 
In the office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 



TO MY WIFE 

Tins LITTLK COLLECTION OF VERSES IS AFFEC- 
TIONATELY DEDICATED. 

B. S. P. 



PREFACE 

In presenting this unpretentious collection of 
verses, written during the course of a busy life, 
largely devoted to other than literary pursuits, it 
does not seem to me that an apology of either less 
or greater length is demanded. Very fully realiz- 
ing that there was no large demand for the 
collection itself, I feel, with equal force, that those 
partial friends who have engaged themselves, be- 
fore the event of publication, to become buyers 
and readers of this little volume, do not wish to be 
wearied with tedious excuses for the short-comings 
and crudities of its contents ; and I have not the 
temerity to address myself to any merely prospect- 
ive audience of readers, lest I should be wasting 
words upon a goodly company that shall never 
exist in a more real domain than that of the imag- 
ination. 

The intelligent reader needs not to be told that 
many of the " pieces " in this collection have been 
included on account of the experiences with which 
they are associated rather than for their supposed 
literary merits. This is true of much that the 
volume contains, and especially so of the " Pioneer 
Poems " and " Memorial Verses." 

When an author sits down to tell why he has 
not written better, he not only dishonors his work, 
but also makes an exhibition of egotism and self- 
consciousness that furnishes a better key to what- 
5 



6 Preface 

ever failures he may have made than he vs^ould be 
able to supply in any other way. I should be glad 
if what I have written were worthier, but I have 
no notion that the reader will expect anything 
great. Indeed I am persuaded that the anticipa- 
tion of the limited public that will interest itself to 
any degree with my little offering is so modest in 
this respect that the performance will be quite 
equal to it. 

B. S. P. 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Dedication 3 

Prepack 5 

The Cabin in the Clearing, and Other Pioneer 
Poems — 

The Cabin in the Clearing 13 

The Pioneer x5 

The Sugar Maple 22 

The Spelling School 25 

The Settlers 29 

Miscellaneous Poems — 

CJrania 3r 

" 'Tis Morning and the Days are Long .... 36 

Looking Toward the Sunset 38 

The Poet's Reed 

The Guest 

Parted 43 

Sonnets — 

The Silent Land 44 

To a Robin Found Dead in the Snow .... 44 

Dew Drops on Wayside Webs 45 

Fragrance 46 

The Silence of Midnight 46 

The Quest of the Soul 47 

An Autumn Sunset . 47 

An Old Thanksgiving 48 

The Empty Nest 49 

A Little Maid of Two 50 

The Song of the Imprisoned Thrush .... 51 

Conquerors 53 

Haste Not, Joyful Hour 54 

She Was Not Made for Sorrow 55 

A Farewell g^ 

The Blind Boy and the Spring 58 

Little Things 59 

The Mistletoe 61 

7 



8 Contents 

At Forty 63 

Endymion, A Medley 67 

Maternal Love Hinting its Thought in Song . . 73 

A Vernal Vagary 77 

The Redbud 81 

The Bugle 83 

" Hail and Farewell " 85 

The Poet's New Year 86 

The Summer 89 

Our Mother 91 

A Christmas Thought 92 

Beyond the Afternoon 93 

The Fallen Student 95 

Joes Visit. Her Story 100 

The Poet's Art. A Fragment 105 

Repetition 108 

When the Swallows Are Flying Away .... 109 

Across the Snow iii 

Winsome Jennie 112 

Voices ot Song 115 

The Bells 117 

Corabell 118 

A Mist of White Laces 120 

Bard and Blossom 122 

Pretty Mary, O ! 122 

A Song 123 

Two Little Girls 124 

The Song of Vivienne 125 

Long Ago 126 

Poor Madeline's Song 128 

Hymn to Night 130 

Love Me Little, Love Me Long 131 

Evening Song of the Dissatisfied Soul .... 132 

The Singing Wind 133 

Canadian Poems — 

On Memphremagog 137 

Magog River 139 

The Stricken Monarch 141 

Icy Air. A Canadian Idyl 142 

Pictures in Ice 144 

May in the North . 145 

To J. W. R., In Response to an Open Letter . . 149 



C ontents 9 

To J. T. W . . . 151 

Song of the Winter Carnival 152 

Memorial Vbrsks — 

Indiana's Dead . . 159 

Lincoln 161 

Sumner 162 

Garfield 163 

Morton 165 

Decoration Ode : . . 166 

At Mount McGregor 167 

Longfellow 168 

Paul Hamilton Hayne 170 

Sonnets — 

W. B. V 172 

M. Louisa Chitwood 172 

M. J. W 173 

The Children 175 

At My Father's Grave 178 

To F. R 179 

The White Water Bar 182 

J. T. E. A Just Judge 186 

Billy Atkison 187 

My Mother 188 

As a Sheaf Fully Ripe 189 

Fairest Flowers of Chivalry 190 

A. C. D 194 

Humorous and Dialect Poems — 

To J. M. T 199 

Courtship at Three Score and Ten .... 201 

Venez Encore, Douce Praise / 205 

To Nellie (two weeks old) 207 

" Whistling Joe " 209 

The Vacation 213 

On the Terrace 216 

An Autumn Reverie 217 

A Bear-i-tone 219 

Solomon's Epistle to John 220 

Mud-Pie Days 223 

The Fate of the Penny 224 

Ould Paddy Fitz Morris ....... 225 

Patrick at the Capitol 226 



lo Contents 

The Camp Meeting ^^^ 

Caesar's Story ^^^ 

The Lesson Ax-id Other Poems — 

Prelude ^^'^ 

The Lesson ^^ 

Indian Graves ^'' 

The Widow's Story ^9 

Rhyme of the Withered Leaves 254 

Claribell • ^^6 

My Robin *5 

August 

The Darkened Room 2bi 

262 

Oralie , 

26'? 

Wandenng ^ 

The Fireside 267 

Life and Effort ^° 

271 
A Question 

Morning Clouds 

The Face at the Window ^73 

, . 276 

Ixion _ 

Freedom 

An Unclerical Prayer ....••• 20 

„ 28? 

The Cemetery 

„ . • T . 282 

Rain m June 

The Poet's Friends '^^3 

Meggy May ^ J* 

The Best Interpreter ....-•• 2»5 

November. In War Time 2>- 

Whittier ^^^ 

The Brook ^^5 

The Poet 290 

Isadore ^^ 

The Songs of Birds ^'^ 

The Toiler's Dream ^94 

For the Dying Year 3°° 



THE CABIN IN THE CLEARING 



AND 



OTHER PIONEER POEMS 



Time rolls liis ceaseless course. The race of yore. 

Who danced our infancy upon their knee, 
A nd told our marveling boyhood legends store 

Of their strange ventures, happed by land or sea, 
How are they blotted from the things that be ! 

How few, all weak and withered of their force. 
Wait on the verge of dark eternity. 

Like stranded wrecks, the tide returning hoarse. 
To sweep them from our sight ! Time rolls 
his ceaseless course, 

—Sir Walter Scott. 



THE CABIN IN THE CLEARING 

Backward gazing through the shadows. 

As the evening fades away, 
I perceive the little footprints, 

Where the morning sunlight lay. 
Warm and mellow, on the pathway 

Leading to the open door 
Of the cabin in the clearing, 

Where my soul reclines once more. 

Oh! that cabin in the clearing. 

Where my Mary came, a bride. 
Where our children grew to love us, 

Where our little Robbie died : 
Still in memory blooms the redbud 

By the doorway, and the breeze 
Tingles with the spicewood's odor 

And the catbird's melodies. 

And I mind the floor of puncheons. 

Rudely laid on joist and sill. 
And the fireplace shaped and beaten 

From the red clay on the hill; 
With the chimney standing outside. 

Like a blind man asking alms. 
Wrought of sticks and clay and fashioned 

By the builder's ready palms. 

Half way up the flue, wide-throated, 
Does the hickory crosstree rest. 

Whence depend the pot and kettle, 
Where the great fire blazes best. 

Oh! I smell the savory venison, 
Hear the hominy simmer low, 
13 



i^ The Cabin in the Clearing 

As my Mary stirs the embers 
That were ashes long ago. 

Once again I hurry homeward, 

When the day of toil is o'er, 
And my heart leaps up in gladness, 

For in this wide open door, 
Mary in her homespun habit, 

With her hand above her eyes, 
Gazes all around the clearing 

Till my coming form she spies. 

'Tis for her I am a hunter, 

And the fleet deer's sudden bound 
Tells how swift and sure my aim is, 

Ere his life-tide dyes the ground ; 
'Tis for her I am an angler, 

And the spotted beauties woo 
From their paradise of waters. 

Ere the sun has dried the dew. 

And the wild rose and the bluebell 
That I pluck with gentle care, 

Are for her who rules the cabin- 
Mary, of the raven hair; 

'Tis for her I smite the forest 
Day by day with myriad blows; 

'Tis for her the cornstalk tassels, 
And the golden pumpkin grows. 

Often, winding through the woodlands, 

Neighbors come with song and shout, 
Eager for a day of pleasure 

Where the latch-string hangeth out. 
And with ready hands assist us 

At our labors, while the zest 
Of our conversation heightens 

Till the sun goes down the west. 



The Cabin in the Clearing 15 

Aye, and once again I see them, 

On a sad, sweet summer day 
When the robin on the maple 

Seems to sing his soul away; 
And the clearing swims around me 

In a tangled dream of woe, 
And my weeping Mary whispers, 

" Tell me why he had to go ? " 

' Why he had to go? " O Heaven! 

" Did God want our little boy ? " 
'Tis the old, unanswered question, 

Cankering in the heart of joy, 
And subduing many a pleasure, 

As I see those friends of old, 
Hiding tenderly our darling 

In the forest's virgin mold. 

Now, that cabin in the clearing 

Is but dust, blown here and there. 
Where the palpitating engines 

Breathe their darkness on the air; 
Where my forests towered in beauty, 

Now a smoky village stands. 
And the rows of factories cluster 

Grimly on my fertile lands. 

Scarcely room enough is left me 

For this double, clustering rose, 
Where the baby and its mother 

Side by side in earth repose; 
Soon the last fond trace will vanish 

Which proclaims that they have been ; 
But no matter — heaven's gateway 

Opened wide to let them in. 

Yet with Mary oft I linger. 

Where the well-sweep slanteth low, 



1 6 The Pioneer 

Planning over all our labors, 

When to plant and what to sow, 

How to ride to Sunday meeting — 
Fixing on a proper day 

For the rolling and the quilting. 

And the young folks' evening play. 

" Eighty, and a memory only!" 

Is that what you speak of me? 
Well, the memory is a blessing, 

And its pictures fair to see; 
While the fairest and the sweetest 

Lingers with me evermore — 
'Tis the cabin in the clearing, 

And my Mary at the door. 



THE PIONEER 

His form is bent, his head is gray, 
His limbs are long and slender; 

But still beneath his woolen vest. 
The heart is true and tender. 

His comrades long are in the clay; 

Their wooden head-boards rotten ; 
And in the modern neighborhood, 

Their very names forgotten. 

He walks serenely thro' the fields; 

Old shadows seem to follow, 
Again he sees the tawny deer 

Go leaping down the hollow. 

He hears once more the rifle's ring, 
The hunters shouting gladly ; 

On yonder hill the wounded bear 
Again gives battle madly. 



The Pioneer ^7 

He hears the pheasant's booming drum, 

He hears the turkey calhng ; 
The thudding maul, the ringing axe, 

The crash of timber falUng. 

He sees the httle cabin home, 

The tiny patch of clearing, 
Where once he dwelt with wife and boys, 

No breath of evil fearing. 

« Ah, well!" he sighs; "she's sleeping now. 
The eldest boys are with her: 
1 very soon shall go to them, ^^ 

Since they may not come hither. 

The tear that glistens in his eye 

Falls down a moment after; 
For, silvery, echoing up the lane, 

He hears his grandchild's laughter. 

The past and present strangely blend 

Before his mental vision; 
Yet love, that makes the dreary wolds 

Appear like fields elysian, 

Still paints along his early days 
The fairest scenes of pleasure. 

And garners stores of happy thought 
No rhythmic art can measure. 

No words bespeak his heart so warm 
As did the backwoods greeting; 

No preacher has such power as he 
Who held the backwoods meeting. 

He knows of many a merry time 

At reaping, rolling, raising, 
Or, on the jolly husking nights. 

With cheerful torches blazing. 



1 8 The Pioneer 

From many a good wife's quilting bout 
He treasures home-spun blisses, 

Where old folks talked, and young folks 
played 
Their games of forfeit kisses. 

The lazy Indian still he scorns, 
His squaws and his papooses; 

He thinks, God made them ; but, no doubt, 
For undiscovered uses. 

Where now a dozen turnpikes stretch 
Stiff lines between the meadows. 

He knew a single Indian trail 

That wovuid thro' forest shadows. 

A dozen villages he sees 

Beside their railroad stations. 
Where once a single trading post 

SupjDlied the settlers' rations. 

A hundred rushing trains go by ; 

He hears them scream and thunder. 
And laughs to think how they'd have 
stormed 

His backwoods world with wonder. 

" How strange the ways they practice now, 
This new time emphasizing," 
He says, and with the uttered thought, 
Grows loud soliloquizing: 

" With chattering instruments at church, 
And dapper youngsters preaching. 
And for the congregation's hymn, 
A dozen lassies screeching. 

"And then for all our social joys, 

And good old-fashioned greetings, 



The Pioneer 19 

The sinners mask at fancy balls, 
The saints at bible meetings. 

"You rest at ease in fancy homes, 

Your thoughts on high careering; 
But give me back my wife and boys. 
And give me back my clearing, 

"And give me back my rifle gun, 
My forests, deer, and pheasants 
And I will prove you, any day. 
As tame as British peasants. 

" Your girls grow fine ; your boys grow 
proud 
And vain; oh, more's the pity! 
There's scarce a youth in all the land 
But's crazy 'bout the city. 

"It's true some boys who grow up now — 
Pale, thin, unlikely creatures. 
With foreheads broad and dwindled limbs. 
And strange, thought-sicklied features, 

" Might well be doctors, if they would. 
Or preach without much harming. 
But all the stoutest, brightest ones 
Should steady stick to farming. 

" Give me the lad with sinewy arm 
For box or wrestle, ready 
To lift his share at hand-spike end. 
Or hold a rifle steady, 

"And I will after show a man 

Whose heart is tender, human, 
And brave in every hour of need, 
And true as steel to woman. 



The Pioneer 

"But I, why should I moralize? 
I'm but a dotard growing, 
And death cuts now a reaper's swath 
Beside his ancient mowing. 

" It seems so strange, the forests gone ; 
The very stumps are rotten, 
And half the fields I helped to clear 
I've really now forgotten. 

" The post-horse, lagging with his load, 
Across th' unbridged morasses. 
He reached us once or twice a month 
With letters for the lassies. 

" But now they run on flying wheels. 
Or fly on lightning pinions. 
And in the twinkling of an eye 
Arrive from far dominions. 

"For church and school-house, once a hut 
Of logs did half the county. 
But heaven as freely then as now 
Dispensed her largest bounty. 

"We flailed the wheat with twisted sticks; 
By steam you thresh and clean it, 
And rush your four- horse reapers where 
We used to hook and glean it. 

" But why go on this cat'logue style 
With what we did, and you do; 
We did the best we could, and that's 
The way in knowledge you grev/. 

" The old folks labored long and well 
To build the I'ude foundation, 
And you have wro't no more than we 
With all your cultivation. 



The Pioneer 21 

" We conquered forests, cleared the land ; 
Our work, let no man scorn it; 
But you who follow, follow well ; 
Complete, refme, adorn it. 

" The olden music, olden songs, 
The pioneer rejoicings, 
vStill linger on my listening ear 
With myriad happy voicings. 

'^•No wives are like our dear old wives, 
No neighbors like our neighbors. 
No boys are half so bold as ours. 
So cheerful at their labors. 

"No ladies in their rustling silks 
And gimcracks half so winning, 
As were our girls in linscy frocks 
From yarn of their own spinning. 

Full many a rough, unseemly man 

Who shared my early labor. 
Looks noble through the mist of years. 

For was he not my neighbor? 

"And so when all your heads are white, 
And death comes creeping nearer. 
You'll deem the old ways, perfect ways, 
And hold your old friends dearer." 

A partridge whistled by the way, 

A blackbird trilled above it, 
A redbird sang " O, sunny day," 

The robin " How I love it!" 

"Ho! " cried the pioneer, " you birds 
Are bent on early pillage," 
And so, his musings spoiled, he walked 

Quite briskly toward the village. 
1S70 



THE SUGAR MAPLE 

The bright magnolia spreads its bloom 

And loads the air with sweet perfume, 

And gives a thousand charms unknown 

To any but its native zone; 

The olive and the fig tree stand 

Along the slopes of that fair land, 

Wherein, of old, the Jewish maids 

Were wooed and won; their ample shades 

Have fallen round kings and prophets old, 

With silent blessings manifold. 

But though we yield the blissful powers 

Of olive shades, magnolia bowers. 

And where the vine and fig tree grow. 

See plenty smile on all below, 

No better, fairer trees are they, 

When decked in summer's glad array, 

And when the ripening autumn time 

Bequeathes its wonders to the clime, 

They ne'er present such canopy 
Of waving leaves and brilliant dies, 
In myriad optic harmonies. 
To contrast with the sober skies, 

As our own sugar maple tree. 

What though for Afric's sons the palm 

May yield its shade, the hermit's psalm 

Of old Armenian origin, 

Be heard its sunny bowers within, 

Or birds of strange and gorgeous plume* 

Fresh from the tropic lande that bloom 

With countless flowers of loveliest dies, 



The Sugar Maple 23 

Pipe from its crest their harmonies, 
Yet no superior shall it be 
To our own sugar maple tree, 
Whereon the blackbird tunes its lay, 
The mocking bird and speckled jay 
Grow garrulously loud and gay. 

The rugged pine, the mountain fir, 
The cypress sad, and juniper. 
The orange, with its fruit of gold, 
And the Libanian cedars old ; 
The banyan tree whose livnig dome 
And shaft and pillar form the home 
Wherein, reclined at lazy ease. 
The Asian views his summer seas; 
All these are lovely, all are fair. 
But none the coronet may wear; 

No stately monarch of the wood. 
That lords it o'er the solitude; 
No giant oak whose sinews form 
The ship that rides the ocean storm, 
No stately tulip waving high 
His cups, against the summer sky, 
Shall bear the crown nor honored be 
Beyond our sugar maple tree. 

When first the sun begins to warm 
The sleeping earth's long frozen form. 
And bearing on his northern way. 
To melt the icicles by day 
Which winter, still with equal might, 
Congeals and forms again at night ; 
O! who shall name in scornful mood 
That sweet, delicious, glorious flood. 
That perfect saccharinean sea. 



TJic Sugar Ala pie 

That floweth from the maple tree? 

Not he, who nurtured in the west 

Of memories that he deems the best, 

Reveres the sweet unselfish joys 

Of rustic girls and hardy boys, 

Where fell in fleecy clouds the damp 

Evaporations from the camp, 

And Avhere the work was cheered along 

With mingled jollity and song. 

And when the sugaring off was done, 

Such sweets were known and heights of fun 

As are but rightly imderstood 

By him, who, in some northern wood, 

Has scooped the primal sugar trough, 

Presided at the stirring off. 

Known every labor, every joy 

That waited for the rustic boy, 

Through all the year, till March should bring 

The sugar-making and the spring. 

Let not the puny despot boast 
His vaunted sweets, that are the cost 
Of labor driven by the lash. 
Red with the gore from many a gash, 
Where human chattels toil in pain 
To rear the sugar-yielding cane; 
When by the cheerful work of hands 
That never felt the hissing brands 
That mark the currency of hell, 
Where planters buy and traders sell. 
Here, in this northern bower, is wrought 
A more luxurious sweet than aught 
The world had ever known until — 
A good return for many an ill — 

The Indian skilled in savage ways 
By rude example taught the free 

Forefathers in the forest days, 



The Spelling School 25 

While yet the May Flower sped the sea, 
The merits of the maple tree. 

To grace thy trunk, as I have seen 
Glad children on the wooded green 
Round some favorite tree entwine 
Flowers and grass, and bits of vine, — 
So with little skill I've wrought 
This, my wreath of rhyme, and brought 
Leaf and bud and branch to thee. 
Glorious Sugar Maple Tree. 

1857 



THE SPELLING SCHOOL 

Level silence on the landscapes, 
Silence shrouding all the hills. 

Lies the white robe of the winter, 
Hushing all the laughing rills. 

But a voice of song and laughter 
Cheerier far than brooklets make, 

Echoes down the beaten highway, 
Scares the wild hare to the brake; 

And the merry sleigh bells tinkle. 
Chiming to a wordless rhyme, 

While the voices of the sleighers 
With the melody keep time. 

It is by the country school house, 
At the crossing of the roads, 

That the drivers stop their horses. 
And discharge their precious loads. 



26 The Spelling School 

All the bells have ceased their music, 
And the sleighs have ceased to run, 

But within the district school house 
All is jollity and fun. 

Hark ! the w^arning word is given, 
" Silence all! " the teacher cries. 

And the champions take their stations, 
Followed by a hundred eyes. 

One, a rosy little maiden, 
Just arrived at "sweet sixteen," 

'Tother, lad of eighteen winters. 
Overgrown, and shy and green. 

See! the saucy little lassie, 
Throws the ferule in the air. 

Whispering to her stout opposer, 
" Catch it, Jemmy, if you dare." 

Jemmy hears the words and blushes, 
Blushes till his eyelids close. 

Makes a pass to catch the ferule, 
Misses it and hits her nose. 

Just as quick as thought can travel 
Runs a titter round the room, 

And the choosers end their trial 
With the handle of the broom. 

" Choice is mine," cries Jem, elated. 
Half forgetful of his shame, 
Gazes round the room a moment, 
Calls aloud the favored name. 

Then the merry maiden chooses. 

And thus round and round they go, 



The Spelling School 27 

Till the spellers all are chosen, 
Counting fifty in a row. 

Now the war of words commences, 
And the lettered soldiers stand 

Forth to fight like ancient warriors, 
One for each opposing band. 

Lassie, in her seventh winter, 

Eyes of blue and hair of brown. 

Stands opposed to man with whiskers. 
Bravely meets and spells him down. 

Tiny boy, with lisping utterance. 

Eight years old a week ago, 
Reigns triumphant, till he conquers 

Half the long opposing row. 

Lad with sandy hair defeats him. 
Stands and spells and spells away, 

Ah! the little maid is vanquished, 
Awkward Jemmy's gained the day. 

Little hands are clapped together. 
Feet are stamped upon the floor. 

Till the master orders silence 

And the fight begins once more. 

Cupid, roguish little fellow, 
Now is busy round the room. 

Whispering gently to the maiden 
Words that set her cheeks abloom ; 

While he puts the hearts a throbbing 

Under half the woolen vests, 
That are buttoned round and over 

Boyish forms and manly breasts. 



The Spelling School 

Words of love uncouth are spoken, 
Yet with meaning pure and chaste, 

And the brawny arms encircle 
Many a little tapered waist. 

But in vain the watchful tutor 
Seeks to find the lovers out, 

Arms withdraw and tongues are silent 
When the teacher comes about. 

O! what happy dreams are woven 
For the future, fair and bright, 

And what promises contracted 
For the coming Sunday night. 

Now the Spelling School is over, 
And the sleighs are out of sight. 

And the bells, the songs, the laughter. 
Die away into the night. 

I am left alone and dreaming 
Of the spelling schools of old. 

And the maid whose smiles I valued 
More than e'er my lips have told. 

Here's to memory of the spellings 
And their rounds of sinless joj's, 

For the merry homespun maidens 
And the noble country boys! 

1858 



THE SETTLERS 
Read at a Reunion in 1883 

Fathers and mothers of our native land, 

I hail yovi, through the mists of passing years, 
And fain would grasp each labor-hardened hand 

And speak a blessing to your listening ears; 
For ye are blessed that your toils have won 

Far better fruit than any idle praise; 
And, as you calmly face life's setting sun. 

You know the peace that follows well-spent 
days. 

You found a \vilderness of mighty woods. 

Thick set with giant trees and tangled vines, 
With brush and weeds ; where all the vernal floods 

Of drift-choked streams, o'erflowing their con- 
fines 
Of bank and channel, filled the oozy swamps. 

Stagnated and grew foul in summer heat, 
Bred torrid fevers, agues, frigid cramps, 

Till death came oft to darken and defeat. 

But we who follow, where your hands have 
wrought. 
See smiling cities, hamlets, fruitful fields, 
School, church and college, homes of cultured 
thought. 
And every good a generous progress yields : 
And so we bow to you, gray pioneers, — 

Strong men, brave women of the early days! — 
Y^e came and conquered by your toils and tears, 
And now this garden land shall speak your 
praise. 

29 



30 The Settlers 

Gone are the tangled woods, the swamps no more 

Breed pestilence, but blossom like the rose. 
And happiness and health reign, where of yore 

The hardy settler battled fever foes. 
Gone are the drifts, the river floweth free 

By farms that smile in morning's golden light; 
With his long howl of wailing deviltry 

The wolf no more sends shivers through the 
night. 

But lost with these is much of highest worth, 

The broad, unstinted welcomes of the past, 
The hospitality that blessed the earth, 

The generous love, unwearied to the last. 
That held a neighbor's weal beyond your own, 

The mutual interest, linking heart to heart 
In truer compacts than the world had known. 

Or dreamed, or taught, or typified in art. 

Your cabin homes, with rudely-puncheoned floors. 

Wherein the great wheels hummed their busy 
tunes. 
Ne'er on the weary wanderer closed their doors 

With selfish coldness, but the precious boons 
Of cheer and sympathy you freely gave 

And such small comforts as were at command, 
While with your outer latch-strings there did 
wave 

A welcome ever warm, from heart and hand. 

Gone with the latch-strings are the welcomes old, 
And formal manners now usurp the place 

Once filled by love; but yet some fadeless gold 
Of early days survives ; the tender grace 

Of many true and priceless things are ours, 

Bequeathed from happy homes of " Auld Lang 
Syne;" 



The Settlers 31 

Nor are we all unworthy of your powers, 
O, pioneers! ^vhence sprung our Hoosier line. 

And so, dear elder friends, we honor you 

And love you more and more as years increase ; 
With you rejoice whene'er your souls renew 
Themselves m these fair days of hope and 
peace: 
Look round you! All these teeming lands j^ro- 
claim 
Your deathless honor; these 3-our hands have 
sown, 
Shall bud and blossom to each settler's fame; 
For they are yours, gray pioneers, alone. 

No matter who the title bonds may hold. 

The settler's deed outranks and waives them all: 
His toils and sufferings weighed against the gold 

Of paltry purchase make its value small: 
To him the largess of the fields belong. 

The mellow music in the odorous air, 
The scene of triumph when the rustic song 

Wafts home the harvest, ends the reaper's care. 

His are the happy children in the street. 

The groom and bride who at the altar stand; 
His are the toils of busy hands and feet 

That cultivate and beautify the land; 
For long ago he won them in the fight 

With untamed wilderness and savage beast ; 
And while his eyes still know the sun's glad light. 

On earth's best things should soul and body 
feast. 



And so we cry, God save the pioneers I 
The salt of all our goodly land are they, 



2 'J he Settlers 

Preserve and bless them through the circling 
years 

And let them tarry with us many a day ; 
And when, at last, each toil-scarred veteran falls 

Out from the ranks, let honor crown his rest. 
And, written upon the imperishable walls 

Of heavenly hope, his name be ever blest. 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS 



Life treads on life, and heart on heart — 
We press too close in church or mart. 
To keep a dream or grave apart. 

— Elizabetu Barrett Browning. 



(33) 



URANIA 

O Urania! I whisper Ihy name with a sigh, 
For I know that the moments are hurrying by, 
That the ages are chasing and hurrying by. 

And I know I shall wander with thee but a day, 
And the day like a shallop is sailing awa}', 
And thy life like a shallop is fleeting away. 

A fairy white shallop, keel, rudder and sail 
All enwove of the gossamer found in a vale, 
Of the gossamer found in a fabulous Vale. 

In a fabulous Vale where the sensitive trees 
Shade an avenue leading to fairest of seas. 
While they throb to the joulse of that fairest of 
seas. 

O Urania! th}^ life is a musical tone 

From the harp of an angel that sings by the 

throne, 
Of an Angel enchanted by Allah's high throne. 

As you fade from my sight, as your loss I deplore. 
Still it sings in my soul as you fade evermore. 
And vour life to my life gathers sweet evermore: 

And no lark ever sings to the beautiful sky 
But in dreams my Urania is wandering by, 
But I see the wdiite mist of your garments go by. 

35 



36 Urania 

O Urania! the earth and the air and the sea 
And the infinite spaces are vocal with thee, 
And the sunset and moonrise seraphic with thee. 

'Tis but dust that is fading beyond our control, 
And Urania forever is queen of my soul, 
And thy love makes my heaA'en, O, queen of my 
soul! 

And no morning forever and ever shall rise 

But my soul shall be bare to tliy sweet azure eyes, 

Shall be naked and w4iite to thy questioning eyes. 



"'TIS MORNING AND THE DAYS ARE 
LONG" 

I HAD a dream of other days; 

In golden luxury waved the wheat; 
In tangled greenness shook the maize; 

The squirrels ran with nimble feet, 
And in and out among the trees 

The hang bird darted like a flame; 
The cat bird piped his melodies. 

Purloining every warbler's fame: 
And then I heard triumphal song, 
" 'Tis morning and the days are long." 

They scattered roses, strewed the palms 
And shouted down the pleasant vales; 

I heard a thousand happy psalms, 

And, laughing, \vove a thousand tales 

Of mimic revelry and joy; 

They mocking well the worldly great— 



' Tis Morfiing and the Days are Long 37 

Each tan-faced girl and barefoot boy, 

Dear shapers of my early fate — 
And then again the ^olian song, 
" 'Tis morning and the days are long." 

Far winding past the storied town, 

The river ran through bosky groves. 
Its flood we sailed our vessels down 

Full freighted with a myriad loves: 
Our souls went floating to the gales, 

With scarlet leaves and shreds of bark ; 
We named them cutters, schooners, sails, 

And watched them fade in shadowy dark, 
Then down the waters flowed the song, 
"'Tis morning and the days are long." 

O, morning! when the days are long. 

And youth and innocence are wed. 
And every grove is full of song. 

And every pathway void of dread. 
Who rightly sings its rightful praise. 

Or rightly dreams it o'er again. 
When cold and narrow are the days. 

And shrunken all the hopes of men. 
He shall rewaken with his song 
" The morning when the days were long." 

There palpitations wild and sweet. 

The thrills of many an old delight, 
And dimpled hands that lightly meet. 

And hearts that tremble to unite. 
Arise upon the rosy morn, 

Pass down the lovely vales and stand 
The picture of a memory born, 

The mirage of a lotus land — 
A land where once we trolled the song, 
" 'Tis morning and the days are long." 



LOOKING TOWARD THE SUNSET 

The morn is past, the afternoon 

With deep'ning shadows has before; 
Behind me throbs the ardent June, 
The summer is for me no more: 

No more to dream 

By lake and stream 
In life's sweet matin time, I stand 

As one who wails 

Beneath sad sails 
That bear him from his native land. 

O, ceaseless toil and deathless hope ! 

Ye have been mine through all the past; 
E'en while the future's widening scope 
With clouds and doubt was overcast, 

You were to me 

The legacy, 
The crown, the guerdon, the reward, 

The refuge sought 

By tireless thought, 
The cicerones of the patient Lord. 

O, eager childhood, youthful prime. 

And happy, happy, prattling days. 
When all my raptures flowed in rhyme, 
- Half given to love and half to praise, 

Ye fade away. 

As fades the day ! 
The sunset land before ine lies ; 

O'er heart and soul 

The sad waves roll 
That bear me under alien skies. 

38 



Looking Toward the Sunset 39 

But yet at times the shadows lift, 

And with the frenzied touch of old, 
I seize the wayward harp and drift 
In fancy's atmosphere of gold ; 

I move along 

The ways of song 
And wander onward night and day ; 

O'er sweetest tides 

My shallop glides, 
My ship, song-wafted, sails away. 

By temples old and classic vales. 

By summer isles and murm'ring streams, 
Where mountain forests breast the gales, 
By coasts, where sea and land are dreams, 

'Neath sun and star 

I journey far. 
And bear no burden, scrip nor staff; 

Unsandaled, fleet, 

My eager feet 
Fly onward where the shadows laugh. 

The shadows laugh, the night is wild. 

The stars go singing in the sky; 
The dead return; an angel child 
Invites my dreaming soul on high. 

And child and soul. 

In joy's control. 
Through fields elysian float and hear 

The notes that move 

The tides of love 
In song's diviner atmosphere. 

I murmur everywhere and make 
The echoes messengers of words 

Disjoined from thought, as tides that break, 
Or the half-warbled songs of birds 



40 The PoeVs Reed 

That leave no trace 

In time nor space; 
As films of sun-kissed cloud that fade 

And are no more ; 

As some fair shore 
Of mirage sunk in instant shade. 

And so I pass from night to day 

And day to night, in mimic round, 
The child of wayward fancy's play, 
The willing slave to rhythmic sound. 

And softly glad, 

Or wildly sad. 
The notes that tremble o'er my heart 

Still keep alive, 

In thought's full hive, 
The bees that ply love's honeyed art. 



THE POET'S REED 

When young Apollo, from the heavens cast 

down, 
Stripped of all splendor and his robe of light 
Torn from him by the thunderer's royal hands, 
Walked on the earth — a god without a crown, 
Leading Admetus' herds across the sands. 
Through ragged deserts and uncultured lands. 
With cries and plaints he wearied not the night. 

He wearied not the night nor vexed the day 

With vain repinings nor discordant woe. 

But plucked a reed which stood in bannered pride 

Beside the sylvan stream's enchanted way. 

Wrought it into a flute, which, wonder-eyed, 

Held fast by longings new, unsatisfied, 

The savage shepherds heard him blow and blow. 



The Poefs Reed 



41 



The immortal artist, painting with his flute, 
His breath for pigment, for perspective sound, 
Woke answering echoes from the rocks and 

l^lains, 
And placid waters which till then were mute, 
Save to discordant winds or noisy rains, 
Soothed man the beast with his delightful strains. 
Till man the soul his sense of being found. 

From wonder passed the shepherds to delight, 
Delight grew into interest, interest thought, 
Then many reeds were plucked and wrought and 

blown, 
With stunning discords, till, by patience taught, 
The god within each breast stood up alone 
Answering Apollo's music with his own, 
And earth had something from the heavens 

caught. 

And thus came art from heaven, when earth was 



you 



ne 



t>' 



Cast downward by the thunderer, as in wrath. 
Its form a god's in banishment, its need 
Asserted not by any muse's tongue 
Nor seven-stringed phormix, but by simple reed. 
Broken and bruised and made to cry and bleed 
And murmur down the musky zephyr's path. 



THE GUEST 

There's a bird that stays with us the whole 

winter long, 
And gladdens our hearts with its beautiful song ; 
Its plumage is plain and its notes are not loud, 
Nor would they excite the applause of the crowd ; 



42 The Gtiest 

Yet, somehow, we love it and cherish it so, 
That when other birds fly it refuses to go. 

Its songs are strange questions and gentle replies, 
Set to music as soft as the light of the skies. 
With a hint, here and there, of Promethean fire, 
And some notes from Pan's reed and the old 
Orphic lyre. 
But so mixed and mingled with plain homely 

things. 
That critics and pedants despise all it sings. 

No bird of the wildwood was ever so free, 
No prison-bound warbler so hampered as he : 
Now soaring he sings with the sweet English 

lark. 
Now tremblingly pij^eth sad notes in the dark. 
Or, casting a backward glance over the snow, 
In the treble of age, chants the sv^'cet long ago. 

But more often his notes are as glad as the woods 
When spring bursts the buds and unlooses the 

floods ; 
He sets children romping with innocent joy, 
And gives the old gray-beard the heart of a boy ; 
The matron reneweth her youth in his strain 
And feels the sweet coyness of gii^lhood again. 

And so, with our blessings, he ever remains, 
When summer rejoices, when winter complains; 
We love him and cherish him more as the years 
Run past us and leave us their sadness and tears, 
And smile with content at the critical scowl 
Of the pedant who swears that our bird is an 
owl. 



PARTED 

A WHITE 'kerchief shaken afloat 
By the tremors of one pretty hand, 

And a boy with his heart in his throat 
At the edge of the wave on the sand: 

She kisses her soft finger tips 

To the sorrowful lad on the shore, 

And her shallop goes out mid the shij^s 
But returns its fair burden no more. 

The sun has gone down in the west 

And the winds and the sea are at peace, 

But the lad stands and beats on his breast 
And his sorrow has never svircease. 

There are cargoes and sailors and ships, 
And the balm blowing in from the isles. 

But alas! for two warm ruby lips 

And two dimples that melt into smiles. 

And alas! for the slight, fickle mind 
That forgets amid flatterers and ease 

The brown country lad, left behind, 

With his yearning outreaching the seas. 



43 



SONNETS 



THE SILENT LAND 



When the soul's scepter falleth from the hand, 
The nerveless hand, grown icy cold and still, 
What power can execute the spirit's will? 
What force respond to any sweet command? 
That we may question, this we cannot know; 
Nor yet to what far realms freed spirits go, 
When they no longer sup from dregs of woe. 
Ah, blessed land! where time's exultant flow 
Leaveth us stranded ; where the breeze doth blow, 
From holy heaven's enchanted isles of bliss. 
To heal our wounded spirits with its kiss. 
And waft us to the better life that is 
The joy of Love's perpetual synthesis, 
The gladness we shall never cease to know. 



TO A ROBIN FOUND DEAD IN THE SNOW 

Wast tired of the south and the song of the sea. 
Gentle herald of spring, that thou temptedst the 
cold. 
And cam'st back to hasten the sap in the tree 
With thy love-making measures so tenderly 
bold? 
Now thy merry "good morning!" shall hail us 
no more, 
Since starvation and storm have bestowed upon 
thee. 



44 



Sonnets 45 

As on many a bard in the years gone before, 
That silence which speaketh of things that shall 

be, 
With a pathos surpassing the grief of the sea. 
Or thy tenderest note when this brown wing 

was free; 
For men will be moved by the stillness of death, 
Who never were softened by song's rhythmic 

breath 
As it heralds the spring when she first wanders 

forth 
To kiss into bloom the sheathed buds of the North. 



DEW-DROPS ON WAYSIDE WEBS 



Oft have I walked, when morn was on the 
land, 
And seen bright gems, like stones from broken 

stars, 
Or globes of gathered rays from ardent Mars, 

Or spheres of nectar, dropped by beauty's hand 
From the tuberose's heart, caught in the net 
The spider for the vagrant fly has set; 

And, blessing inuch the sunlight falling through 
And glorifying thus the drops of dew 
I turn me to the spiders' webs, all wet 

Upon the wayside grasses, left and right : 
*' These ai-e," I sigh, " such nets as youth doth 
weave 
To catch fame, honor, riches, in their flight. 
Which, even when most successful, but receive 
Some fading bubbles touched with borrowed 
h^ht." 



^.6 Sonnets 



KRAGRANCK 



A THRILL of something seeming half divine, 

Ethereal essence, like the perfect thought 
The poet knows of, but can ne'er design 

A web of words wherein it may be caught; — 
Intangible, and yet pervading all. 

Bathing the senses in a nameless joy ; 
A globe of ecstacy that in its fall 

From some remoter world, the rosy boy 
Has caught and blown to us, in viewless spray, 

To waft us gently to the dreamy shore 
Whereon the roguish archer beareth sway; 

And when 'tis sweetest still we yearn for more, 
E'en while the rhythmic pulses flow along 

The happiest staves of summer's odor song. 



THE SILENCE OF MIDNIGHT 

Peace! gentle goddess, sleep is on the shore; 
The tuneful herds are silent by thy hill. 
The little bardlings of the eve are still, 

Their chattering discords vex thy soul no more; 

The last lorn lover's serenade is o'er; 
The mousing owl now flitteth where he will; 
The musquash frolics by the meadow rill ; 

The stream o'erflows its dam with sullen roar. 
And trickles through the forebay at the mill; 

Great Aldebaran beameth like an eye, 
Huge Ophiuchus bears the writhing snake: 

How wildly startling, were a human cry 

To wake the echoes, now, of earth and sky! 
Break but the silence, and the spell shall break! 



THE QUEST OF THE SOUL 

Amid all scenes of pleasure voices fall 

From some far region, some diviner part 
Of this wide imiverse, and seem to call, 

To call and woo lis with resistless art; 
And, listening to their sweetest melody 

Of joys beyond, and endless days to be. 
The soul upsoareth on impatient wings 

To some far shore, some land of wood and stream. 
Where sound the songs that no man ever sings, 

Where on the living, palpitating strings 
Of lyres immortal as the hands that play 

The dream of music is no more a dream; 
Where hopes and loves that thrill our forms of clay, 

And die away, as torches in the night, 
Shall rise again like spirits of the day 

To breathe upon us all their old delight. 

AN AUTUMN SUNSET 

'TwAS a glorious eve in Autumn, 

All the sky was grand with clouds, — 
Here, like mounts of gold and amber. 
Yonder rich vermillion curtains. 

There like infants' snowy shrouds; 
Like a dim lamp in a chamber 

Of some mighty ancient palace, 
Swung the red sun in the distance. 
Low and lower down the ^vest: 

Twilight poured her mystic chalice. 
Into all our longing sjDirits, 
As he leaned his monarch forehead 

On the night's ambrosial breast, 
Closed the evening scene in splendor 

And departed to his rest. 

47 



AN OLD THANKSGIVING 

If turkey failed and beef was tough, 

With toil and debt increasing, 
We sighed not, but we ate enough, 
And laughed because the times were rough 
And care's demands unceasing. 

Beyond the clouds the future stood 

With gifts of joy or sorrow; 
We trusted God to make them good, 
And waited still, in thankful mood. 

The dawning of the morrow. 

" Things might be worse," the father said ; 

"Hope darkened more," said mother; 
" The household memories are not dead, 
The household angels have not fled — 

God saves us to each other." 

And so that old thanksgiving day, 

In doubt and darkness rising. 
Was full of praise, and love's sweet way 
Held over all its gentle sway, 

Our sovds in joy baptizing. 

O, not from pleasure's idle reign, 

Nor luxury's soft condition. 
Uprises praise that sweetens pain, 
And faith that ripens souls like grain 

For harvest fields elysian. 

Thanksgiving in the humble home 
Where toil and care are neighbors 



48 



An Old Thanksgiving 49 

Brings down, somehow, from kingdom come 
A peace that Hghtens sorrow's sum 
And blesses rudest labors. 

Despise no day of little things. 

No joy in lowly station! 
For toilers may be more than kings 
To Him "who giveth prayer its wings 

And faith its coronation." 

And in the happy years that lie 

Beyond the shadowy river, 
The souls that rather sing than sigh 
May still be blessed and gladdened by 

Thanksgiving days forever. 



THE EMPTY NEST 

I HOLD within the hollow of my hand 
A little nest of twigs and wool entwined 

By some wee mother that has fled the land, 

And left but storm and winter winds behind. 

Child of the Summer, she to Summer gave 
Her happy singing offspring, and behold ! 

They flit with Summer over land and wave, 
And warble in her atmosphere of gold. 

I hold within the casket of my soul 

The empty nest where many hopes were born 
That fled beyond my eager youth's control. 

And left me lonely, sorrowing and forlorn. 

Children of youth, with youth they ever fly, 
But never fold their wings in any cage, 

Divinely sing in boyhood's happy sky, 

But flee from the chill atmosphere of age. 



A LITTLE MAID OF TWO 

A SMILING face, a dimpled chin, 

Some tender eyes of blue; 
Wherefore is she condemned for sin, 

My little inaid of two? 

She runs to meet me up the path, 

Her graces mine renew; 
'Tis false, she is no child of wrath, 

This little maid of two. 

Her little hand is on my cheek, 

It thrills me through and through; 

My lips refuse awhile to speak, 
But kiss my maid of two. 

" You talk of primal wickedness — 

Pray, what has that to do 
With all this laughing blessedness. 

This little maid of two? " 

" Depraved and totally undone," 

I think's about your view; 
But when your argument is spun. 

Here's still my maid of two. 

Her innocence, her artless ways. 

Her faith and love so true. 
Refute your dogma to God's praise ; 

This little maid of two. 

Ah, me! were all the world as she, 

What should the angels do. 
But yield their ci-owns, bestow their palms 

On little maids of two ! 



50 



THE SONG OF THE IMPRISONED 
THRUSH 

WILD, sweet note! Again I see 
The Western woods of old, 

Before the woodman's ruthless axe 
Had turned its strength to gold : 

Where nature reared her sylvan throne 
And ruled, in gentlest mood. 

The wild life that her hands had sown, 
" The shy things of the wood." 

Distinctly falls the pheasant's boom 
Upon my listening ear, 

1 scent the flow'ring haw's perfume. 

The turkey's call I hear; 
The gray has flown from beard and hair, 

The sparrow's song is sweet — 
There's youthful vigor in the air. 

And thistles in my feet. 

O! softly, like the light of stars 

That makes the blue divine, 
Falls through the spirit's yielding bars 

This tremulous song of thine. 
Lone prisoner from the wild-wood vale. 

That pinest in thy cell, 
But ne'er forget'st the woodland tale 

That none can sing so well. 

As he who from Ferrara's cell. 
Where want and hunger dwelt. 

Taught all the world the miracle 
Of tuneful joy he felt, 



SI 



52 The Song of the Imprisoned Thrush 

So thou, poor bird, all undismayed 

By chaff of curious men, 
Fill'st all the world, for us, with shade 

And woodland song again. 



THE SONG 

Far away. 
When the June was full of song, 
And the days were fair and long, 
Where the thickest wild woods stood 
Was a tuneful neighborhood; 
Chattering blackbirds on the trees 
Piping loud their ecstasies. 
Sparrows twit'ring by the stream. 
And the cat-bird's tangled dream 
Of all melodies that make 
Bird-songs glad for music's sake; 
There two thrushes young and fair 
Lived and sang, a happy pair; 
Sang and loved and hatched their brood 
In that tuneful neighborhood: 
Where the hawthorne's tardy bloom 
And the linden's rich perfume. 
With its hint of honey cells. 
And the trumpet flower's red bells 
Wooed the wandering pirate bee. 
Led their young and joyed to see 
How they bravely grew and strong 
In that world of love and song. 

List! O, idle passer by! 
I who sing where tree and sky 
And the wood flowers are unseen, 
I who sing of what has been 
And what may be, I who make 
Music for its own sweet sake, 



Conquerors 53 



Am of that once happy brood 
And that tuneful neighborhood. 
Ask me not of parent birds ; 
Doubt is saddest of all words; 
All I know I sing and say 
That I came from far away 
Came a prisoner for my song — 
Artless art that tarries long— 
And inspired by all I kneAV, 
In that world so fair to view; 
All I knew and all I heard, 
By the voice of beast and bird, 
Still a prisoner, pining yet 
With the pathos of regret, 
I repeat the wood notes wild 
That the parent taught his child, 
Singing to his fledging brood 
In that tuneful neighborhood. 



CONQUERORS 

Who Cometh with perfect art 
To interpret the song of the heart 
That trembles with joy supreme 
In the tumult of love's yovnig dream, 

The ages shall crown him king 
Over all the bards of time. 

And the songs that he shall sing, 
Unsullied by lust or crime. 
Shall follow the rounds of the sun, 
Where the day is never done. 
Who writeth the song of faith, 
The things that the spirit saith, 
At the end of the weary years, — 
Of the soul that toils in tears 

On a desolate, thorny way, 



54 Haste Not^ yoyful Hour 

All broken and bare, when it sees 
That it leads to the gates of day 

Where the end is eternal peace, — 
In heaven shall sound his lyre 
And its notes shall not expire. 



HASTE NOT, JOYFUL HOUR 

Tarry with us, joyful hour! 

Haste not in thy going! 
Here within our summer bower 
Daintiest bud to fairest flower 

Momently is growing. 

Whither wouldst thou, happy day, 

Down the west declining? 
Shout the children at their play, 

Youth, that mocketh at delay, 

For thy delay is pining. 

Haste not, most angelic guest, 
In whom the world rejoices! 
Paint with Eden isles the west. 
Thrill with paradise the breast. 
Tune with heaven our voices! 

Rest, O time, thy flying feet, 

This fruit is unforbidden ; 
Wife and children round me meet, 
Life is fair and love is sweet; 

Let them not be chidden! 

Linger, O, serenest hour! 

Exchanging sun for shadow; 
Life is drinking, like a flower. 



She Was Not Made for Sorrow 55 

All thy joy of field and bower 
River, hill and meadow. 

Stay! But lo! with sudden hush, 

The children's romp suspendeth, 
The twilight darkens in the bush, 
His swift good evening sings the thrush, 
And so the rare day endeth. 



SHE WAS NOT MADE FOR SORROW 

She was not made for sorrow ! 
When grief came 
She cried — for shame ! 
Why sjDoil my day ? 

But I will laugh to-morrow. 

She was not made for sorrow ! 
And when death 
Consumed her breath. 
He had his way. 

But she smiled on the morrow. 



A FAREWELL 

Lay your cold hand in my warm hand I 

You are going far away 
From the beauty and the gladness 

Of this mellow autumn day; 
We shall miss you in the sunshine, 

We shall miss you in the shade. 
We shall sorrow on without you 

When your lowly grave is made. 



56 A Parewcll 

O ! to tell you how we love you, 

That in heaven you still might know 
All the tender thoughts that linger 

In our waiting souls below, 
Would we had the poet's magic, 

The magician's mystic power. 
Till before your eyes should blossom 

Our affection in full flower! 

Will not heaven be less than heaven 

Should no echo reach us there 
From the loved ones left behind us 

In a world of toil and care ? 
Should no gentle strains come to us 

From the earthly days of old, 
Will we not grow weary listening 

To the angel harps of gold ? 

There are dogmatists who tell us 

That the blessed souls above 
Are so self-contained they heed not 

Mortal pain nor mortal love; 
That they even might look downward 

To the burning lake of hell 
Undisturbed, though loved and lost ones 

In its fiery depths should dwell. 

But I know, O friend departing! 

You will never cease to be 
In the kingdom of affection, 

In the world of sympathy. 
Better be a loving spirit 

In the midst of doubt and woe. 
Than a heartless, cold immortal. 

Where the streams of pleasure flow. 

You will hear us, you will heed us. 
You will know our voices' chime, 



A J^arewell 57 

Singing In the morning's gladness, 
Or the noontide's ardent prime; 

You will run with joy to meet us 
When we come with eager feet 

To the blooming land of promise, 
Or fair Salem's golden street. 

Fare you well! but not forever; 

Though our hearts be sad and sore, 
We shall follow, we shall follow, 

And our griefs shall haunt no more. 
Let my warm face touch your cold face, 

Let your heart be close to mine; 
Theirs are but some brief pulsations 

In a melody divine. 

But their pulses time the music 

Of twin souls that love the day, 
And the blossoms and the bird-songs, 

And the poet's roundelay ; 
One beats strong, one trembles faintly, 

While far voices seem to call 
Through a mist of light that sweetly 

Floweth over Zion wall. 

O ! I feel your benediction 

Resting sweet on heart and brow; 
But my eyes must weep the ansAver, 

For my lips are speechless now ; 
Swiftly lapsing Into silence 

Goes this dearly cherished clay; 
But for thee, O soul ! an angel 

Swingeth wide the gates of day. 



THE BLIND BOY AND THE SPRING 

The spring came laughing down the way 
Where village children ran at play; 
She joined them at their " hide and seek " 
And softly kissed the blind boy's cheek. 

He felt the pressure of her lips, 
It warmed him to the finger tips; 
Her breath was on his tangled hair, 
And left a tender halo there. 

A hint of heaven's benignant grace 
Was kindled in the blind boy's face; 
His quickened pulses seemed to run 
Like insects sporting in the sun; 

His spirit sight was apt and keen 
For things that eyes have never seen, — 
The thrills by which the grasses grow, 
The force that makes the pansies blow, — 

Each spicy odor from the woods, 
The fainting boom of far-off floods, 
The shirr of rapid, winnowing wings 
And all spring's gladly quickened things, 

His fancy clothed with form, and made 
Soft pictures of the sun and shade, — 
The sun and shade he never saw, 
But knew through feeling's subtlest law. 

He knew when buckeye leaves unfold, 
When burst dandelion's floods of gold 

58 



Little Things 59 

On emerald meadows, when the blaze 
Of red buds lights the forest ways ; 

What time the thrush's hungry broods 

Are hatched in sylvan solitudes, 

And where the bluebells ring perfume 

And gladness through the dead'ning's gloom. 

O ! oft dispelling grief and night, 
Did spirits give the blind boy sight? 
Were angels, serving in disguise, 
Far more to him than mortal eyes? 

I know not; but howe'er it be, 
In all things hides a mystery 
That compensates for sorest loss 
And weaves a crown for every cross. 

Let wise men name it as they will. 
For me those words are dearest still 
That yield all good of time or sense 
To God's unslumb'rinsf Providence. 



LITTLE THINGS 

A SIMPLE rhyme, a childish grief, 

A blossom on a lover's tomb, 
A bud expanding into leaf, 

A dewdrop in a clover bloom ; 
How sweet, how sad, how wondrous fair, 

How soon forgot, how quick to fade ! 
The song, the bloom, the infant care. 

Pass like the play of sun and shade; 

But in their passage quicken thought, — 
As sunbeams melt on field and plain 



6o Little Things 

And leave their slightest impress wrought 
In blooming grass and ripening grain, — 

And though each individual form 
Grows indistinct, its glow remains, 

A halo round us in the storm, 

A genial warmth that fills our veins. 

The critic comes with awful frown 

To crush the artist, like a gnat; 
Frosts nip the tender blossoms down, 

And childish griefs, for this and that. 
Are merged in sorrow's large estate. 

That widens round our frosted heads; 
And yet the varied web of fate 

Is woven of such slender threads. 

The little things of time are most 

Secure of influence, promise, power: 
The flying seed, the insect host, 

Dissolving dew and transient shower; 
They multiply, build up, tear down. 

And write their excellence and grace 
On arid waste and mountain brown, 

Till naught is bare nor commonplace. 

So little murmurs, joined in song, 

Light bubbles that in music break — 
When youth is glad and days are long — 

In low, soft ecstacies, may wake 
The living chords of that sweet lyre 

Which trembles in the human heart 
And prompts the genius to aspire, 

The man to act a noble part. 

Then, scorner, spare the little things ! 

From atoms all the worlds are wrought. 
Peasants may dwindle into kings. 

Or wits give birth to humorous thought; 



The Mistletoe 6i 

The great be small, the small be great ; 

And yet through all life's varied throng 
This truth holds fast as death or fate, 

The humble ever are the strong. 



THE MISTLETOE 

They kissed beneath the mistletoe 

Upon that Christmas day; 
They kissed beneath the mistletoe 

And then he w^ent away ; 
He went away, he went to sea, 

He sailed on many a ship. 
But still the mistletoe was green. 

Her kiss was on his lip. 

He sailed a score of years and four. 

His head was getting gray, 
But fortune that had dodged him long 

At last was brought to bay. 
And came down handsomely in fine 

With half six oughts or so; 
The ship in which he sailed was called 

" The good ship Mistletoe." 

He turned unto his men and spoke, 

His "words were soft and fair, 
Of Christmas cheer and wedding bells 

And sweet domestic care: 
He homeward turned his vessel's prow ; 

How should the sailor know 
That she had sworn herself to Christ 

He kissed so long ago. 

He sailed across the tropic line, 
He saw the great cross fade, 



62 The Mistletoe 

He sailed for home, for happy yule, 

For mistletoe and maid : 
His soul with rapture overflowed, 

His heart was wild with joy ; 
He capered up and down the deck, 

He whistled like a boy. 

The bashful moon her image cast 

Upon the laughing sea, 
He murmured in his sailor w-ay 

" 'Tis like my bride shall be;" 
" I see her image in the wave, 

She lights my soul as when 
We kissed beneath the mistletoe; 

So shall we kiss again." 

Entranced by one delightful thought. 

He leaned beyond recall; 
He fell upon that phantom moon, 

'Twas shivered by his fall : 
He sank; with sudden motion drawn 

The vessel's keel below. 
Went warm with love's remembered kiss 

Beneath the mistletoe. 

They lowered their boats, they searched 
the sea, 

They chased the shining wave; 
But he was on his coral bed 

And she was in her grave ; 
And when that eve at anchor lay 

The good ship Mistletoe, 
The little port was mourning half 

And half in Christmas glow. 

The best beloved, the guardian saint 

Of all the straggling town 
Was underneath the frozen clods 



At Forty 63 

Upon the wintry down; 
And there 'neath many a wind-browned 
thatch 

With rafters slanting low, 
The brave tar kissed his heart away 

Beneath the mistletoe. 



AT FORTY 

TO ONE BEYOND THE RIVER 

Yesterday I was twenty, the world was in roses, 
No cloud of despair in the etherine sea. 

And blessings were plenty as petals in posies. 
While fame just stood waiting to crown you 
and me. 

Then fortune held out 'midst the glory of morning 

Her fair jewelled hand in the beautiful east. 
With beckon and call thrilled us sweet with the 
warning, 
"Come, seize on my treasures, from greatest to 
least!" 

Now Cupid hid slily beneath the sun bonnets 

That shaded the brows of some lassies we knew; 
I was Moore in their albums, you Shakespeare in 
sonnets 
Addressed to their eyes, sparkling, tender and 
blue. 

My own rara avis^ — I think you remember 
That feathery title I gave Florabel, — 

While the Venus of Milo that late one November 
You saw in the person of golden haired Nell, — 



64 At Forty 

Ah, well! Shall I say they are forty and florid, 
With never a notion of Shakespeare, nor Moore, 

Nor the phrensies of poets, but mate ^vith some 
horrid 
And well-to-do bores, as their ma's did before? 

You remember the fervor that flamed in our 
bosoms 

As we tilted at slavery, the terrible foe ; 
Heroical Gracchi we sought the red blossoms 

Of radical honors, a score years ago. 

We pulled at the ropes and we shouted as loudly 

As any who launched the old liberty ship; 
Then felt sweetest joy as, her sails swelling 
proudly. 
She flew o'er the weaves like a hawk from the 
slip. 

" Ah ! boys, you've helped launch her," cried old 
politicians, 
" You've labored, good hearties, when laborers 
were few, 
Now work for your lives for success, scorn divis- 
ions. 
The future waits radiant with promise for you," 

We toiled, we petitioned, we talked and we battled ; 

The tough rind of slavery was punctured at last, 
Then up came the w^ar and the musketry rattled. 

And all the sweet heavens were with clouds 
overcast. 

You went to the front, not a leader, poor fellow, 
A private were you and a private you fell; 

The stars and the eagles, the shoulder-straps yellow. 
Were seldom for those who loved freedom too 

well. 



At Forty 65 

Now low where you sleep still the pine trees are 
sighing, 
Your soul, like John Brown's, has been marching 
along 
Through all of these ten years, while I have been 
trying 
To gain for your memory one poor tribute song. 

I'm forty to-day, yesterday I was twenty. 
The conflict of ideas, the conflict of arms. 

The conflict of interests with all their addenda 
Have swept past my youth and destroyed all its 
charms. 

And some wave of time, with most headlong 
assurance, 
Has borne me far off from the happy old days, 
Till here at this plain half-way house of endur- 
ance 
I sit without honor, or fortune, or bays. 

Ah, me! When at twenty we long for the battle 
And storm of life's earnest campaign to begin, 

How little we think to be driven like cattle 

Or slaughtered like sheep in the shambles of sin. 

How little we guess that in life's rough endeavor 
The vulture gains more than the paradise bird, 

That over the song of the skylark forever 

The howls of the wolf and the jackal are heard. 

Rest s-weetly, dear friend, not a storm shall awake 
thee, 

Thy pulses to anguish no more shall respond. 
No more shall the false and the fickle forsake thee, 

For love springs eternal and life lies beyond 

This beautiful world, that we men make Gehenna 
By selfish ambitions, unhallowed desires. 



66 Ai Forty 

Uplifting the few and debasing the many, 
The high soul repressing, destroying the fires 

That genius has kindled on many a pure altar, 
Where love and love's author are w^orshipped 
alone, 

Giving merit to penury, truth to the halter, 

And Janus-faced impudence scepter and throne. 

Ah, M^ell! it is past, youth is over, I know it, 
No more shall the days breathe their olden 
delight; 
When Jove seeks the west, nevermore shall the 
poet 
Go crowned with Arcturus,the prophet of night. 

Lost is the lamp's magic, Aladdin, dream siDirit, 
Builds castles no more, crowns our temples with 

Nor whispers vis soft of some toil-begot merit 
That one day shall bring its reward of true 
praise. 

Yet life's bitter wine is far better at forty 

Than nectar youth quaffed in its finest bouquet. 

For then all our good lay in creed, sect and party, 
But now, thanks to sorrow, we cheerfully say 

Whatever God places right plainly before us, — 

To rise with the future, or tremble and fall, — 

That way shall be ours, while we lift up the 

chorus, 

" From forty 'till death, here's good will unto 

all!" 

Feb. 10th, 1873 



ENDYMION 

A MEDLEY 

Ah, blessed son! thy sleep no dangers mar! 
Thou perfect statue, grown from Zeus's self; 
Type of all youth and radiant as a star, 
Fadeless and fair as morning in the east — 
In that delightful east where seraphs dwell; 
No witchery of laughing woodland elf, 
Nor song of siren at her brutal feast, 
May woo thee from thy lofty pinnacle. 
Nor cause one tint to flutter on thy cheek — 
Thy cheek whose bloom of perfect manliness. 
From lofty Latmos to the world shall speak 
By that deep silence which doth more express 
Than all the energy of gifted tongues. 
Of youth and beauty and the length of days 
That mortals sigh for, and in myriad songs 
Implore and picture, glorify and praise. 



Youth and beauty are but shadows 
Chasing over shaven meadows 

On a summer afternoon. 
When the films of cloud are sailing 
Through the sunlight all prevailing, 
Sailing to the measured sweetness 
Of that rarest incompleteness — 
Perfect, yet an incompleteness — 

That we call the heart of June. 

67 



68 Endymion 



Youth and beauty touch men's faces 
With some fading tints and graces, 

While the morning hght is high; 
When the w ine of sensual gladness 
Turns to bitter draughts of sadness, 
Youth and beauty f lom us sever 
Tho' their shadows linger ever — 
Haunting souls of men forever 

With a joy that can not die. 

O, happy spirit, infinite in w^ealth! 
Joy-breathing spirit, through the countless years 
Burst buds of bloom in many alien lands, 
Break the wild shadows, sow the morning beams 
Roll back the wave, display the tinted shell. 
Throw films of verdure over the atoll, 
And plant thy daisies on the mountain side! 



Count me all the floral treasures 

Of the lands along the sea, 
None are fairer, none are rarer 

Than the daisy's bloom to me! 
Modest daisy, little daisy ! 

Blooming in the chilly air 
Of these Nor'land mountain places, 

Thou art wonderfully fair. 

II 

There is youth upgn thy petals, 
Beauty bloometh on thy stem. 

Hardy daisy, pretty daisy! 
Thou, in Flora's diadem. 

Ever more shalt bear a glor}-. 



Endy?nion 69 

Be of each great flower the peer, 
And the thoughts of men shall bless thee, 
Modest little mountaineer. 



Fair soul of youth and beauty, thou art more 
Than we, who witness thee but through each 

sense, 
Each sense of color, odor, touch and sound. 
May idly recognize in thee, for thou 
Art primal cause, growth and effect in one. 
Thou plantcst in the grave with every death, 
And in the hideousness of all decay, 
The seeds of things that glorify the world, 
x\nd they grow into wonderful great joys 
That overshadow widely-sundered states. 
And some are sentient creatures, fly and sing. 
Swim in the waters, walk upon the plains. 
Burrow in earth or on the surface crawl. 
And other forms have more exceeding grace 
Of tint and outline, yet are rooted things 
That move not save as wind and flood and frost 
And suns and seasons mo\-e them, but are thought, 
By some, to be inhabited by souls 
Which, when exhaled from earth, become the 

trees, 
Fruits, grains and grasses and immortal flowers 
That crown the holy hills of paradise 
And make its valleys rich with fadeless bloom. 



Baby mine, baby mine, 

Touch my grizzled face 
With that little hand of thine — 
Touch me, spoil my costliest line 
With thv elfin grace! 



7o Endytnio7i 



Baby fair and baby sweet, 
Thou art in the dawn, 
Treading with thy little feet 
Where the shadowy things retreat 
When the nisfht is sfone. 



Ill 



Baby, crooning soft and low. 

Tell me all thy joy, 
How the spirits come and go, 
Whisp'ring things no sage shall know 

To my baby boy! 



Baby mine, baby mine. 

Touch my \vrinkled face 
With that little hand of thine — 
Touch me, bring me thoughts divine 
With thy childish grace! 



And some are spiritual, such as our dull eyes 
May not behold while pleased with earthly things. 
Nor may our fingers tingle to their touch; 
But on the softer cushions of the brain 
They leave, at times, their broken images — 
Broken and made imperfect by the rough, 
Hard usages to which we put the plates 
That have received the impress of their forms 
Cast by diviner light than light of suns. 
Than rays of all the suns that make the day. 
Each for his retinue of wheeling worlds. 



Endymion ^i 



Sing me a song of the broken vow 

And the love that is love no more, 
Of the robin's lay that is silent now, 
And the fruit that is blighted on the bough, 
And the footfalls on the floor 
Of one who shall come no more. 



A broken hope and a broken reed, 

And broken images, treasured long, 
A broken heart, that has ceased to bleed. 
And a broken will that does not heed 
The memory of a wrong, 
Whose cruelty crushes long. 

Spirit of youth and beauty! unto thee — 
To thee we sing our matins and to thee 
Our voices in the vesper hymn shall rise. 
And through all time and all eternity 
Thy active agency shall still command 
The love of every people, every age; 
And every creature, mortal or divine. 
Or of the lower orders shall be glad 
Wherever thou art working out thy joy. 

And still on Latmos' height Endymion lies, 
— Eternal )'Outh, immortal sleep are his — 
Dowered with all blisses that the worlds can give, 
Kissed by the singing breezes from the seas. 
Blown over by the goddess-haunted air — 
The air that stirreth Hippocrene's wave. 
Lifts the light bubbles from Castalia's fount 
And blows them through the world in mists of 

song, 
Bears the broad pinions of the Hippogriff, 



72 Etidy7nion 

Enwraps the perfect form of Ganymede, 
Thrills to the touch of Hebe's jeweled hand, 
Moves lifeless strings with Orpheus' dying strain; 
Or in the later years from Olive's mount, 
Grows musical with words that touch the chords 
Of tenderest echo in the human soul. 
And through the ages gathering more and more 
Of strength and purpose for the general good, 
Lift men and nations toward the broader light 
Of better thoughts and svstems more benign. 



Ah! no matter how we move 
In our orbs of hate or love. 
Nothing shall awake from sleep 
Yonder king on Latmos steep. 
He whom Zeus has called to rest 
From the m' arm earth's loving breast, 
Sleepeth fair and bideth well 
In youth's endless miracle. 

Hercules, whose dying pain 
Rent the Ncssian robe in vain, 
Was not fair and strong as he 
In his 3'outh's long mystery. 
Favored shepherds taught by Pan 
How to charm the heart of man 
With each wildly warbled note 
From the reed's enchanted throat 
Never dreamed what music flows 
From the silence of repose, 
Where all sounds and senses blend 
Into one immortal end ; 
Where old age his staff resigns 
Flushing into youth's soft lines. 
And the grim scythe-bearer lies 
Just a babe with laughing eyes. 



Afaiernal Love 73 

Call this legend, if you must. 
Naught but mythologic rust; 
But, 'tis rust of purest gold. 
Rich with meanings manifold, 
Falling through the mists from far 
Like the splendor of a star, 
Teaching men this subtle truth: 
Death is sleep and sleejD is youth; 
And if we who hope to wake. 
When some happy morn shall shake 
All the rock-ribbed hills with song. 
Are misguided, blind and wrong. 
Still for us the aions keep 
This immortal youth of sleep. 



MATERNAL LOVE HINTING ITS 
THOUGHT IN SONG 

The mother standeth nearer to the child 
Than aught except the soul wherein it dwells, 
The all-sustaining, ministering soul of God, 
Of which the mother is the minister 
Who draws into herself and formulates 
All elements of earth, or air, or sun, 
That are required to build the pure physique, 
The rounded excellence of the perfect form ; 
Nay, more than this, from all their hidden xounts 
She gathers up the vital germs that make 
The new force of her offspring, and again 
The mystery of human life renews. 

The father does but quicken, she it is 
Who, as the lab'ratorial strength of God, 
Fuses the widely-sundered elements 
Till the new harmony results; the child 



74 Maternal Love 

Leaps, struggling up the wonder world of 
growth 

And yet more marvelous the office seeiTv*. 
The mother fills, wherein from out the sovi\ 
That fills and thrills the universe, she draws 
The powers, whose limits man can not define,, 
That gathered in one whole we christen mind, 
The spirit that can thread the universe. 
Number the systems, weigh the pendulous worlds. 
Measure the distances that planets run, 
Or dwell securely in a beggar's hut, 
Courting the friendship of a mangy dog 
Whose thought is scarce inferior to its own. 

These powers we can not fathom; these we think 
Shall live forever, these the mother draws 
From sources that she knows not of, nor deems 
Herself God's greatest minister on earth, 
The procreatress of immortal minds 
Touched deeply with the essence of her own 
And of the soul of him her love adores. 

Aye! here's a mystery of His handiwork — 

How through a slender woman, frail and fair. 

The infinite spirit that provoketh life 

Binds mortal and immortal into one. 

As wheat and straw are grown from the same 

seed, 
And sends the struggling human to the world 
Equipped for growth, for Laoconlan toils. 
For life, for death, for immortality. 
For all of frightful, pastoral, sublime, 
That standeth forth to front the child of God. 

And yet the mother's toil has scarce begun 
With her maternity ; the infant's cry 
Announces wants she quickly comprehends; 



Maternal L,ove 75 

And, comprehending them, her former self 

Drifts to the rear; the child goes on before. 

In all her aspirations, acts, desires. 

Love for her offspring leads all other thoughts; 

And still she is heaven's holiest minister 

To guide the little feet among the thorns. 

Or when, to her, in after years they come 

All torn and bleeding from their heedless w^alks. 

To bind them up and heal them with her tears 

And, haply, woo the wanderers back to peace. 

The tender wooings of a mother's love 

Win most to heaven, while yet they cleave to 

earth. 
And gather rotmd her darlings at their play, 
Or in the hours when, sin or passion-tossed. 
They fain would burst away from her control. 
To wander in the thorny wilderness 
That vagrant license calls elysium — 
The serpent-haunted wilderness of crime — 
Or lacerate their feet on burning stones 
In the blank desert lands that lie beyond ; 
She pours her sympathies into their hearts 
From that pure fountain only death can seal ; 
A sympathy admonishing with cai'e. 
Striking the error, sparing still the child. 
Spurning the wrong, but not the erring one. 
And sometimes ti"ipping on its blessed way 
To song's light movement, lightening heavy 

thought. 

POOR BLEEDING FEET , 

Poor bleeding feet! It seems but yesterday 
That ye were plump and rosy in my hands, 

And as I held you lightly, I did pray 

That never treacherous thorns nor burning sands 

Should mar my beauties on the walk of life ; 



^6 Maternal Love 

That they should still be perfect, be complete; 
That I should never, from unholy strife 

Recall my child with burning, bleeding feet. 

Poor bleeding feet! anointed with my tears, 

How gladly would I wipe your stains away 
And heal your wounds, and all the coming years 

Direct your steps and lead them not astray. 
How gladly would I turn my darling's thought 

To purer pleasures, paths that are more sweet 
With blessed joys than those by license sought 

And whence no child returns with bleeding 
feet. 

Poor bleeding feet! O, God! for their return 

I thank thee much; for they are more to me 
Than ease or gold, even while they bleed and burn 

And I anoint their wounds incessantly. 
For once they were as pure as new-blown flowers. 

When first with morning light and dew they 
meet. 
And still, through all the sorrow-laden hours, 

Though soiled and torn, they are my darling's 
feet. 

Poor bleeding feet! I kiss your wounds away, 

And wipe you with my hair, as she of old 
The dear Messiah's sinless feet, and pray 

That all my child's deep sorrow be consoled, 
That purity shall to his heart return, 

And innocence find there a safe retreat. 
While never more to bleed, nor ache, nor burn, 

I set in virtue's paths my darling's feet. 



A VERNAL VAGARY 

Now the ardent sun advances, 
Wooing with his am'rous glances 

Water, earth and atmosphere ; 
Till they thrill with life before him. 
And with bud and bloom adore him, 
Spreading all their verdant garments 

In the pathway of the year. 

By the brook the red bud flameth. 
In the copse the thrush proclaimeth 

Life is sweet and love supreme; 
And those musical debaters, 
Those incessant agitators, 
Merry-hearted, jolly blackbirds. 

Caucus now by swamp and stream. 

How their stormy legislation 
Aideth love's sweet transmutation 

Do the wrens and robins know ? 
But if robin never guesses 
How the restless blackbird blesses 
Those who listen to his music, 

As he wanders to and fro. 

Yet my robin bathes his bosom 

In the dew that wakes the blossom, 

And his soul outpours in song. 
When the day is just uprising 
Soundeth far his glad surprising 
Eloquence of minstrel story ; 

And the echoes linger lono- 

77 



jS A Vernal Vagary 

In the youthful soul that knoweth 
How love's gentle spring tide floweth 

Into sweeter, fuller play, 
As the maple boughs get greener. 
And the blue skies grow serener. 
While the bloom in all the orchards 

Whitens broadly day by day. 

Still the Easter sparrow brniging 
Into May his March-morn singing, 

Calleth from their Winter nests 
Many happy woodland fairies. 
Unto whom this milder air is 
Pregnant with sweet provocation 

To the life within their breasts. 

Oh! I hear the children calling 
Where the evening light is falling, 

And I know the witching Spring 
Bringeth some glad intuition 
To each budding soul, a vision 
Of the bountiful hereafter 

That the ripening years shall bring. 

When the crocus breaks its cover, 
Yearning toward the light, its lover. 

Till its tender blooms unfold; 
Then the soul expands her pinions, 
Saileth to the far dominions 
Where the poet, lord and master, 

Garners all things new and old, 

Into hives that hold all sweetness, 
Gardens full of all completeness. 

Airs that breathe and winds that blow 
Only hints of love's best pleasures. 
Music's most dclighful measures, 



A Vernal Vagary 79 

Such as happy-hearted angels 
In the fields of heaven do know. 

Somber-garbed as any Quaker, 
Now our feathered mischief maker 

His mosaic lay repeats; 
He, the harlequin of muses. 
With eclectic rashness chooses. 
Like the imitative poet. 

From an hundred author's sweets. 

And like many a rhythmic weaver, 
This satirical deceiver 

Sings no music of his own; 
His a cat call, harsh and grating. 
Save in this sweet time of mating 
That he steals from other warblers 

And repeats each tender tone. 

I have listened to the patter 
Of the April rains that scatter 

Wild " forget-me-nots" to meet. 
With their azure eyes, the shadows 
Of the blue birds in the meadows. 
As they twitter forth their welcome 

To the Spring's advancing feet. 

I have seen the brown hares leaping 
Where the last year's dead are sleeping 

And the lambkins at their play ; 
Watched the willow tassels falling, 
Heard the striped chipmunks calling. 
And I know my youth returneth 

On my eager heart to-day. 

All my boyhood's sweet emotions, 
Tender yearnings, wild devotions, 



8o A Vernal Vagary 

Thrill me with tumultuous joy ; 
I'm a grizzled man no longer, 
Care is gone and youth is stronger 
Than the toil and doubt about me, 

While I stand a careless boy. 

I shall never know the reason 
Why, in this delightful season 

Youth returns and age departs; 
Why the hand forgets to tremble, 
Why our friends no more dissemble, 
And we read in honest faces 

Things that rise from honest hearts. 

Tell me not that this sensation 
Comes from vain imagination, 

For such dreams are not in vain: 
Who shall dare define the real 
As divorced from the ideal. 
Or despise those tender graces. 

Sweet as sunlight after rain! 

Song and bloom the heart upliftmg. 
Warmer sunshine, shadows drifting, 

Welcome in the queenly May: 
Rise, O soul, be upward winging, 
Wiser bards with better singing 
Shall rehearse thy vernal welcome 

Many a happy future day. 

Rise, O soul, thy limitations 
Widen with all intimations 

That the seasons bring to thee. 
Of the boundless love around thee. 
Love that never shall confound thee 
With a rude or selfish purpose, 

Love that floweth endlessly, 



The Redbud 

Thrilling with its subtle motion 
Earth and atmosphere and ocean, 

All infinities of space, 
With such ecstasy as waketh 
Life from dullest clods, and maketh 
Of the elemental forces 

Budding beauty, blooming grace. 

Rise, O soul ! to thee is given 
Stormy hades, glorious heaven. 

Swiftest joy and sharpest woe. 
Flowing tears and rippling laughter, 
All the present, the hereafter 
Blooming from some bud of promise 

Blown from heaven long ago; 

And the budding, singing seasons 
Give thee only sweetest reasons 

To assure thy trembling faith 
That, beyond all dark disaster. 
Love is still the eternal master, 
And through all the endless ages 

Life is victor over death. 



THE REDBUD 

CIRCIS CANADENSIS 

Beside the rill that hurries down 
To join the river's broader flow, 

A glorious tree with splendid crown 

Warms the chill woods with crimson glow, 

The "crow-foot" springs in sunny dells, 
On warm south slopes the lambkins pla^■, 

The brook into a river swells. 
The robin sings at break of day. 



82 The Redbud 

And now, before the roses bloom, 

A richer rose is in the glen, 
Where redbud in the forest gloom 

Has lit her vernal torch again. 

A thousand coming splendors show- 
In those soft tufts of crimson flowers, 

Prophetic of the ardent flow 

Of life and growth in glad June hours. 

Where, peeping up from winrowed leaves 
Of last year's fall, the stellar eye 

Of pale anemone perceives 

And greets once more the April sky, 

I stand, a child again, and see 
The seraph forms of other days 

Float 'round the flaming Judas tree 

With jocund mirth and cheerful praise. 

I count no more the varied store 

These budding fields and woods shall bring, 
But lightly walk the pleasant shore 

Of endless youth and boundless spring. 

The buck-eye's leaves are broadly green, 
The ash puts forth its tiny hands 

Of new-born verdure, while serene- 
A gauzy joy— the willow stands. 

1 hear the squirrel's bark ring out, 
The frogs are chattering in the pool. 

By lane and field I hear the shout 

Of children just released from school. 

Spring starts the sap and thrills the blood, 
And gives new life and song and cheer 

To fill the earth as with a flood 
Of budding bliss, but once a year. 



The Bugle 83 

So life's warm tides in billows rise 
And overflow the soul with joy, 

In that sweet season when the skies 
Bend fondly down for girl and boy. 

To those glad days of ardent life 
The redbud's splendor calls us back 

From fruitless toil and bootless strife, 
To walk again the pleasant track 

That leads beneath the rural shade. 
Where once we watched the opening 
spring, 

And — eager lad and trusting maid — 

Saw hope's sweet s^wallows taking wing. 

Alas! their flight has been too high. 
They never perched for you or me; 

But still we love the soft spring sky 
And bless the crimson Judas tree. 



THE BUGLE 

Blow, oh, blow the merry bugle! 
We shall hear the echoes falling, 
Far away along the river, 
Like a silvery rill of music 
Lightly flowing, gently calling 
To our yearning souls to sever 
From the baser things that bind them 
And come higher up forever. 

Blow, oh, blow the winsome bugle! 
Like the melody of ages 
Flown in some seraphic star-land 
Where no guilty soul has entered, 



S4 The Bugle 

Every note that falls assuages 
Savage thoughts, and to the far land 
Calls and woos us with the sweetest 
Flowers of sound in music's garland. 

Blow, oh, blow the mellow bugle! 
Over wood and field and meadow 
It distilleth limpid sweetness, 
And across the enamored waters 
Sways and moves each gentle shadow 
To tlie undulating fleetness, 
To the tremulous vibrations 
Of its melodied completeness. 

Blow, oh, blow the inspiring bugle! 
Let its ecstasies awaken, 
As the evening mists are fading 
From the path the sun has painted. 
Many sorrowing souls forsaken. 
And, their loneliness invading. 
Overflow them, fill them, thrill them 
With a rapture all pervading. 

Blow, oh, blow the happy bugle! 
As the birds are homeward flying, 
For the mellow, misty lover 
In a haze of golden fancies. 
Listening to a maid's replying! 
Send the music pulsing over 
All his spirit, — ^he will deem it 
But the maid's melodious sighing. 

Blow, oh, blow the enchanting bugle! 
Let it fill the cot and mansion 
With a flood of liquid numbers, 
Let it penetrate our slumbers, 
Till as flowers In full expansion 
We shall gather hi the treasures. 



<-<■ Nail and FarcwclV 85 

The intense, uncounted raptures 
Of its starlight-breathing measures. 

Blow, oh, blow the sorrowing bugle ! 
As the solemn midnight passes, 
When the death-watch ticketh slowly, 
And the night-owls, hooting lowly. 
Join the awe-provoking masses 
That are stronger than affliction. 
Let the dead, for whom they echo, 
Bless the bug-Ie's benediction. 



"HAIL AND FAREWELL" 

''Hail and farewell!" We meet and part. 
Even with the greeting on our lips; 
As those who from some busy mart 
See all their wealth go out in ships. 
That never come again to shore, 
So fade our days to rise no more. 

Our three score years are but a span ; 

We scarcely trill an idle song. 
Before the funeral army's van 

Passes with muffled drums along; 
And sadly then the doleful bell 
Moans to the palsied ear, "Farewell." 

" Hail and farewell ! " The stars go down ; 
The billows of the rosy dawn 
Are breaking on the idle town, 

And night's weird armies, far withdrawn. 
Fade like gaunt specters down the west, 
And hope is strong and love is best. 

Yes, hope is strong in newer souls, 
And love is best for those who stay; 



86 The Poet's New Tear 

No more my ship at anchor rolls, 
And yours is sailing fast away. 
I lose you, for the ocean's swell 
Breaks now between us, " Hail, farewell !" 

The lamp goes out, the embers die, 

Pale Dian tips her silver keel 
In some far-hidden reach of sky, 

While night and darkness round us steal, 
And sorrow sits on every sail ; 
We cry " Farewell !" but whisper " Hail !" 

Beyond the ocean, where the palms 

Arise beside the jocund streams, 
And love rehearses all his psalms, 

And youth renews his happy dreams, 
If I may wait your coming sail. 
How blessed then the cheerful "Hail!" 



THE POET'S NEW YEAR 



He was a poet, and his prophet eyes 

Were large and dark, and dreamily beheld 
Bliss in the fields and wonders in the skies, 
Joys for the future, shadowy myths of eld. 
Or saw fame templed in a drop of dew, 
And Cupid nestling where the violets grew. 

The vocal seasons, silent as their songs, 

And cold as their dead lovers' empty nests, 

Had passed to join the unreturning throngs. 

The armies of oblivion's dreamless guests; 

And yet the poet tarried, with a tear. 

To sing his comfort to the dying 3 car. 



The Pocfs Nezv Tear 87 

And while he lingered, lo! a silence sped 

Across the heavens and under all the stars; 
The old year made no sign, and he was dead, 
Dead in his beauty; neither wounds nor scars 
Nor aught that man had wronged him with 

was there 
In his dead face nor on his snowy hair. 

A peace abounding as the peace of God 

Fell on the poet's spirit, and a thrill 
Of instant joy that warmed and spread abroad 
Quickened the peace, but made it holier still. 
He turned his raptured vision toward the 

morn, 
And knew, at once, another year was born. 

" And I have watched," he cried, " the fruitful 
sun 
Rise o'er the gardens of the enamored east, 
Heard the last echo when the song was done. 
Sipped the best wine at fancy's royal feast, 
But never such calm sea of joy as this 
Lapped all my soul in gentle waves of bliss. 

" Silent is death, and life comes silently. 

But joy and music grow with life's increase. 
And love, that dreams and hopes abundantly, 
Sings the lone song whose echoes shall not 
cease ; 
The new springs ever, with rejoicing breath, 
To claim the victory o'er decay and death." 

O poet! singing to thy happy heart. 

Pleased with the bubble that thy breath has 
blown. 
Glad to renew this dear old dream of art 

And think it a creation of thy own, 



88 The PocPs New Tear 

The day is waking, fraud and hate and wrong, 
With morn's first blush will drown thy feeble 
song ! 

But words of doubt were lost on him. He knew 

Of force and murder and the rabble's cry, 
And many false gods worshipped, and the true 
Messiah still led forth to bleed and die: 

"Yet these things ripen," so he said, "the 
grain 
Of love's rich harvest for eternal gain. 

" The fields are greener when the storms are past, 

The woods are lovelier when the winter flies. 
The gloomy day, by shadows overcast, 
Presages purer air and sunnier skies. 

And every new year brings increase of good 
To weld the links of human brotherhood." 

Ah, well ! He was a poet, and his dream 
Ran on in poet fashion, more and more 
Inspired, and instinct with the happy theme, — 
The endless joy the future holds in store. 
He was a poet, and the dawning light 
Ripened to noon and faded into night; 

Ripened and faded as the bud and leaf, 

And many men go on their cruel ways, 
The earth is dark with violence and grief,— 
Vet hope increases with increasing days, 
And each glad poet from his heart of June 
Sings every year a more exultant tune. 



THE SUMMER 

The hills are all shrouded in mantles of snow — 
A silence of white, cold and pulseless as death; 

Yet, somehow, I hear but the summer winds blow, 
And scent the faint musk of the roses' sweet 
breath. 

I wander afar, where his wind-cradled nest 
The oriole swingeth aloft to the spray. 

When the blossom-crowned June with the wheat 
in her crest 
Bids the robin sing love at the dawning of day ; 

Where the plowmen go out, when the morning is 

^ young, 

To stir the fresh earth at the roots of the corn, 

And the country lass trills homely airs with a 

tongue 

Unskilled in the language of flattery or scorn; 

And the hours move like music the soul loveth 
best. 
To the laugh of the brook and the hum of the 
bee, 
Till the sun's parting smile, as he goes down the 
west, 
Makes the fair river blush from her source to 
the sea. 

O ! the world is so fair and the days are so sweet, 
That heaven lies yonder a bliss all unsouglit, 

And time moves along on swift, rose-sandaled feet 
Like the joy of a poet's divineness of thought. 

89 



9© The Sumfner 

All summers that ever were vocal w^ith love 
Are enshrined in the days that go past like per- 
fume, 

And the earth and the air and the heavens ahove 
Are filled with the incense of verdure and bloom. 

" All a fancy ! " you cry, " see the frost on the 
pane! " 
" Hear the winds howling wildly across the 
white moor! " 
Winds may howl and frosts gather, but gather in 
vain. 
When the hearth blazes bright and safe-closed 
is the door; 

And the spirit is wrapt in the sunlight that lay, 
A mist of warm splendor, across the green hill, 

When life seemed an odor from heaven at play 
With the bird and the blossom, the breeze and 
the rill. 

It is winter, I know^, where my footsteps must 
fall. 
But 'tis summer out there where the soul still 
abides ; 
Let Christmas bells ring their melodious call! 
They ring ebb and flow of the summer's warm 
tides; 

The blessed, sweet summer that dwells evermore 
In the mind that adores her and hears but her 
voice, — 
Though the frost etch the pane and the winter 
winds roar, — 
As it sings, without ceasing, " Be glad and re- 
joice ! " 

Sherbrook, Dec. ii, 1882 



OUR MOTHER 



There's a calm and pallid face, 

Sweet with smiles, but worn with care; 

Gentlest love, serenest grace 
Set their tender radiance there. 

None have known it, none shall know 
But to love its peaceful calm. 

Pure as flakes of driven snow, 
Heartsome as a pictured psalm. 

There's a form by suffering bent, 
And a voice once soft and low, 

With whose cadences were blent 
Memories of the long ago. 

There's a crown of snow-flecked hair, 
Once as black as raven wings, 

There's a life whose toils are prayer. 
And its thoughts thank-offerings. 

Blow, sweet blossoms! Warble, birds! 

Soft spring breezes, rise and bring 
Answer to our hopeful words, 
On her pale cheek blossoming! 

Health, thou child of earth and sky, 
By the Father's tender grace ! 

Speak once more from her soft eye, 
Light again her pallid face I 

91 



92 A Christmas Thought 

Unto her be length of days, 
Each terrestrial joy be given, 

And, in some fair world of praise, 
All the endless bliss of heaven. 



A CHRISTMAS THOUGHT 

Give gracious gifts to your children, 

For this is the Christmas time! 
Love is far better than money. 

Example is better than rhyme, 
And a joyous heart and a truthful tongue 
Are forever fair and forever young. 

A mind that is eager and earnest, 
A thought that is tender and true, 

Is a dowry excelling your riches. 
To cherish this whole life through; 

And the maid, when she marries, will do the best, 

Who wins a brave heart in a manly breast. 

Not he who has lands and houses 

That were won by the niggard's zeal, 

Has the best of his toiling fellows 
In the world's great commonweal; 

But an open mind and a liberal hand 

Belong to him who shall most command. 

An eye for the joy of nature, 

An ear for the voice of song; 
A will to answer a brother's need. 

To suffer and still be strong ; 
Give these to man and you make him great, 
To contend with wrong and to vanquish fate. 



Beyond the Afternoon 93 

Then lead, with your happy giving, 
Your words, your walk, your praise, 

The glad, rejoicing children 
In wisdom's golden ways. 

For morning's sun and evening's shade 

Bless him who blesses boy or maid. 

And because the time is Christmas, 

When love is a holy fire; 
And because the hearts of children 

Are full of youth's desire. 
Let your gifts be gracious, — your chidings few, 
That the souls of the children may cleave to 
you. 



BEYOND THE AFTERNOON 

To HIM who toileth in the afternoon 

How grateful are the shadows pointing east. 
The cool, soft shadows that shall darken soon, — 

For rest is most when light and warmth are 
least. 
Refreshing dews condense on leaf and vine. 

And gather in the blossom's honeyed cell ; 
The setting sun along th' horizon's line 

Paints the wide wonder of a day's farewell. 

Bowed at his toil the old man feels the kiss 

Of evening's zephyr on his wind-browned face, 
Bearing a promise of the rest that is 

Beyond his vision, where life's varied ways 
Cross the dim shadow Ime and come no more 

Within the range of any mortal eye; 
But dusk, that hides the sunset's golden door 

Unveils the stars and shows the moon on high. 



94 Beyond the Afternoon 

The wings of night birds fan the restful air, 

The insect choirs are musically glad; 
Come from thy want of leisure, bent with care, 

Poor drudging worm, and be no longer sad! 
The day was long, but morning's gladness soon 

Became a memory, and the fiery heat 
Flamed all about thee in the blazing noon, — 

Toil in the fields and turmoil in the street; 

Toil for thy hands and conflict for thy thought. 

With hopes deferred and aspirations dead , 
For thou hast sown for other reapers, wrought 

That others might enjoy, and thou hast shed 
Thy sweat and blood and tears for those who 
shine 

In jewels and fine raiment, gath'ring gam 
And bleaching their soft hands at cost of thine. 

So hard and seamed with unrequited pain. 

They sport their riches, sing their idle songs, 

And dance like moths about th' unhallowed 
fires 
That they are feeding with thy crying wrongs. 

Nor note the gloom in which thy life expires; 
No matter now ! the stars are in the sky, 

The day's last purple fades with night's in- 
crease ; 
Lift up thy soul in thanks, for God is nigh, 

And in His presence there is joy and peace I 

Soon the globed dew shall settle on thy cheek, 
And spiders spin their webs across thy breast, 

And night hawks call to thee, who will not 
speak, 
So deep, so perfect then shall be thy rest; 

And men shall note the still, unmeasured calm, 
The silent wonder in thy pallid face, 



The Fallen Student 95 

As if in heaven thy ears had caught the psahn 
From some divinest altitude of grace; 

Then go and write their httle verdict, " Dead 

By dispensation of Ahnighty God," 
And give a pauper's pillow to thy head 

In some rude box, hid swiftly 'neath the sod. 
So let them spurn thee! Kings shall share thy 
rest ; 

The grass shall bloom above thy slumber soon ; 
Some-where, in God's own time, thy worth con- 
fessed, 

Thou shalt find heaven beyond the afternoon. 



THE FALLEN STUDENT 



The sun arose, the morn was grand, 
He walked beside the blooming sedge; 
He heard the wild birds in the hedge, 

And saw the glory of the land. 

II 

He found a valley full of song, 

Where every song bore this refrain, 
Repeated o'er and o'er again: 

" Here rest is sweet and pleasure long." 



The vale was very fair to see ; 
All sounds that fell upon the ear 
Were melody itself to hear. 

And yet the wonder seemed to be, 



r6 The Fallen Student 



IV 

To the poor student, pale and worn, 
That all its fields were void of grain, 
That each joy's aftermath was pain, 

And every flower concealed a thorn. 



Its waters to the thirsty tongue 

Were nectar first, but quickly gall, 
While from each tree and tower and wall 

Festoons of poison ivy hung. 

VI 

Here dancing sirens holding high 

Rare goblets brimmed with rosy wine, 
Sang praise to Bacchus and the vine. 

To bestial pleasures, thoughts that fly 

VII 

In reeking atmospheres that move 

Where dull brute instincts scarce descend, 
Where all ambitions meanly end — ■ 

Where hell is heaven and lust is love: 

VIII 

And while as in a waking swoon 
He viewed the valley falsely fair, 
He felt a wave of dull despair 

Clutch at his spirit, while a rune 

IX 

Of lethean melody arose: 

" Leave, student, leave thy rugged path. 
Forsake the mountain's icy wrath. 

For this broad vale of sweet repose. 



The T alien Student 97 



" Thereon thy feet are torn with thorns, 
Thy hands with constant toils are sore, 
While fame and knowledge flit before 

And cheat thee of the countless morns 

XI 

" And evenings riotous with delights, 
And days of ease and months of joy, 
That youth and beauty here employ. 

To worship pleasure in her flights. 



" Then here, no more our bliss despise, 
Youth comes but once ; you cannot wait ; 
When age's palsy falls, 'tis late, 

Alas! too late, for pleasure flies 

XIII 

"From sunken cheek and faded hair: 
Then leave ambition, leave the quest 
For knowledge, that disturbs thy breast! 

Fame's phantom temple in the air 



" Above yon mountain's rugged brow, 
Thy limbs, to reach are all too frail ; 
No power hast thou its walls to scale- 
Come then, be happy here, and now ! " 



The song there ended, but about 
His temples blew a languid breeze 
From poppied caves and lotus trees 

And steeped his soul in dreamy doubt, 



98 The JPallen ^itudent 



XVI 



Till knowledge seemed an idle thing, 
And heaven a thought too far away 
To trust or cherish, and the sway 

Of truth a dream that poets sing. 



XVII 



The breeze blew fresher and desire 

Came on its wings and sought his heart. 
Which passion, with its poisoned dart. 

Touched deep and set his blood on fire. 



" Farewell ! " he cried, " a long farewell 
To mathematics dull and cold, 
To poesy, with harp of gold, 

To Cassar's wars and Dante's hell: 



To science with her weary toil. 
To language and its endless chaff. 
To Plutarch's wisdom, y^sop's laugh, 
To Bacon's studies, Johnson's moil. 

XX 

" Henceforth I count the dream of fame 
A vain illusion, vast and far 
Beyond me as the radiant star 

That crowns the morning: with its flame. 



" Oh ! strong for pleasure, weak for pain, 
The pinions of my soul have grown, 
I shall reap joj's I have not sown, 

Ambition's burial is my gain." 



The Fallen Student op 



Thus sank the student, thus, in sooth. 
Have thousands fallen, to rise no more. 
Nor earth nor heaven shall e'er restore 

The murdered hopes of their lost youth. 



When years v^ere ended, in a land 
Of rock and desert, thirst and heat, 
An aged man v^^ith bleeding feet 

Walked lonely o'er the scorching sand. 



Some remnants of an ancient fire 
Burned dimly in his wandering eye, 
His voice vs^as but a treble cry. 

And he seemed ready to expire, 

XXV 

Save that regret — a fury grow^n — 
Lashed all his failing powders to life. 
And stirred him vs^ith a ceaseless strife, 

And mocked him with the siren's tone. 

XXVI 

"Ah! me," he cried, "the road is long. 
And blank and sad and full of pain, 
I cannot find my way again — 
I listened to the siren's song! 



" God made me for the heights sublime ; 
I sought the vale, became a thrall; 
Did angels weep above my fall? 
I know not. Oh! mv crime! my crime. 



lOO yo(^''s Visit 



" Youth sought indulgence, idly sweet, 
Sowed not to spirit but to flesh; 
Fell in the tempter's gilded mesh, 
And with the mire beclogged his feet. 

XXIX 

" I dream of hope, but dare not call 
Upon my God, so long, so long, 
I listened to the siren's song, 
I fell and knew not I did fall. 



Oh! I have reapt as I did sow! 

Yon mountain's browwereEden to me, 
]SIy dear old books 'twere bliss to see, 

The schoolboy's wisdom heaven to 
know. 



" x\h ! weary heart, the road so long- 
Will soon be traveled, I shall die; 
Will heaven attend my latest cry? 
' I listened to the siren's song ! ' " 



JOE'S VISIT 

HER STORY 

How many friends have died since we 
Were young, and full of hope and joy! 

Grave matrons, whom we loved to see, 
.Strong man, fair maiden, laughing boy; 

A sister here, and there a friend, 



Joe's Visit ic 

Till all things into sorrow blend; 
And here, in this sad neighborhood, 
We scarcely dream of earthly good ; 

Our joyful times are times of prayer, 

When we ascend the heavenly stair 
With feet that used to idly stray 
Where youth and pleasure led the way — 

Ah! youth and pleasure! did we know 

Such worldly raptures long ago? 

I did not think that, evermore, 

The memories of my youth would rise. 

Except as follies to deplore, 

Sweet pictures that deceive our eyes: 

And so I nursed my fifty years. 

Sometimes in peace, sometimes in tears; 
And tried the preacher's words to mind. 
And all my joy in Christ to find ; 

To comfort James, and do my best 

To merit everlasting rest; 

Till Joe came driving from the town, 
And brought his wife and daughters down 

To spend the day and talk, when ohl 

He brought me back the long ago. 

There is such music in his voice; 

Such happy thoughts his words express; 

I could not other than rejoice 
In his old ways of pleasantness, 

Till backward flew the circling years, 

Forgotten were our cares and tears; 
My heart beat faster, and my blood 
Ran on, a warmer, swifter flood; 

No more I thought of deep distress. 

Endured for primal wickedness, 

Nor struggled with the doubt and thrall 
Of Eve's deep sin and Adam's fall ; 



102 Joe's Visit 

But all my soul did overflow 
With blessed joys of long ago. 

And James, who seldom smiles, as thou 
Remembrest, doubtless, laughed and said 

That " really — he knew not how- 
But Joe could surely raise the dead 

With that old heartsome way of his, 

So robust in its manlinesss, 

And yet so tender, sweet and true, 
So tinged with life's exultant hue." 

And when his wife and girls chimed in — 

PerhajDs it may have been a sin — 

Our hearts grew light, our souls grew young 
And all sweet measures said or sung, 

Fell on my senses, soft and low. 

Just as they did so long ago. 

So long ago, when Joe and I 

Were nearer by a shade than friends. 

When softly beamed the morning sky. 
And life seemed made for blissful ends; 

Again we chatted down the path, 

With jest and song, and merry laugh ; 
We mingled in the sport and play 
That ends the rustic holiday; 

We won our airy conquests o'er, 

Recounted all the frugal store 

Of joys our humble youth had given, 
And spoke of some dear friends in heaven, 

And Joe's glad voice, it thrilled me so, 

I smelled the pinks of long ago. 

And Joe, he seems so young and fair. 

Is so compassionate and kind. 
And wishes every one to share 

The larofess of his own free mind — 



I 



yoc's Visil \ 03 

So bound with every suffering soul, 
So glad to make the wounded whole — 
That fasts, renunciations, prayers, 
He scarcely counts among his cares; 
But smiles and says, " Perhaps your creed 
Is all you claim ; but kindly deed. 
And loving heart and open hand, 
Control me with a sure command, 
That o'er my life began to grow 
When we were children long ago." 

And though I pity his poor doubt. 
Or fancy so, I watch his face, 

And try to make the secret out 

Of all its manly strength and grace. 

And how, beneath his fifty years. 

He still a boy at heart appears. 

He has known sorrows, such as break 
The wills of braver men, and make 

Life's pathway blossomless and bare. 

Or lit by passion's baleful glare ; 
Or one that leads to some sad cell 
Where earth-denying hermits dwell; 

But Joe, each year, is more like Joe, 

The glad hcai't of the long ago. 

I cannot analyze his thought, 

Nor answer why his presence brings 

My petty cares and griefs to naught. 
And makes me think of happy things; 

Nor why — O, friend! am I to blame? — 

His dark eyes thrill my mental frame, 
Till I, who love my James so well, 
Go back along the past, and dwell 

On each glad hour with Joe, and guess 

How great had been my happiness 
If " sound belief " and fruitful land 



I04 yo^''s Visit 

Had not stept in and claimed my hand. 
And I had answered " yes " to Joe, 
That summer evening long ago. 

I cannot pause to sorrow now, 

Nor think of him who wooed and won 

A fickle heart with fickler vow, 
Then left me as the vagrant sun 

Leaves, in the shadow, lowland flower, 

To woo the rose in lady's bower; 

Nor how Joe, smiling vi^hen we met, 
A smile subdued by some regret, 

Seemed ever more life's best estate, 

Blown from me by a cruel fate, 

Till once — such griefs must have an end— 
I loved and married Joe's best friend: 

But in this country place, you know. 

We've missed Joe's voice since long ago. 

Till now he comes, the flower of spring 

And fruit of summer all in one. 
And finds me old, a withered thing, 

A stalk long blanched by storm and sun ; 
With much self-introspection worn, 
Taught that 'tis woman's lot to mourn 
Eve's primal sin, and work and wait 
In sadness, for the heavenly gate, 
On golden hinges swinging wide, 
To give her room to creep inside 

Behind the crowds of saints, and raise. 
Half guiltily, her song of praise. 
He comes! — this old broad-shouldered Joe — 
And warms me with the long ago. 

He laughs, and sings an idle song. 

And jests— such jests would try me so 

From any of the common throng; — 

But, somehow, seem all right from Joe — 



The Poefs Art 105 

He says God meant us to be glad, 

And, blessing others, to be blest; 
And that no life is wholly bad, 
Howe'er with sin and shame oppressed. 

And adds: " A woman* wrote those words 

Whose songs were sweeter than the birds, 

A suffering woman, who, from pain, 

Reaped precious fruits of heavenly gain." 

O, this rare heretic, this Joe, 

My heart he's filled with long ago! 

Of course it's wrong in me to feel 
Delighted with such golden chaff; 

Yet, all forgetful of the zeal 

That chides a woman's happy laugh, 

As some poor boy with palsied limb. 

Beholds his comrades leap or swim. 
And feels their thrills of joy, so I 
Perceive some influence from the sky 

Steal to my senses and reveal. 

More than his words, of heavenly weal, 
Till the sweet thought I half believe 
That such fair views will not deceive: 

But what were views when there was Joe, 

And round us all the long ago? 



THE POET'S ART— A FRAGMENT 

Despise not the art 
Of the poet, the master. 
Whose fingers fall lightly 
On keys far resounding 
The thrill of his touches. 
Till heart unto heart 
Through the ages beats faster, 

♦Alice Caky. 



io6 The Poef^s Art 

As man unto man looks 

With kindlier emotions, 

And in lives, as in books, 

Reads the wonderful story, — 

The oneness of Godhood, 

The oneness of forces, 

The oneness of manhood, 

The purpose, the glory. 

Of beautiful thinking; 

The honor of labor. 

The peril of license, 

Of ease and indulgence, 

And thought to thought linking, 

Leads up to the summit 

Where joys paradisal 

Bloom sweet on the stems 

Of life's thorniest sorrows. 

Despise not the art 
Of the poet, the lover. 
Who breathes to the lute 
The most delicate measures. 
That kindle the heart 
Till the winged god, the rover. 
Floats by on the wings 
Of the song he is singing. 
And prudence grows mute 
While th' immortal boy's fingers 
Fling swift from the strung bow 
The sweet, stinging arrows, 
W^hose wounds never heal 
While this mortal life lingers. 

Despise not the art 
Of the poet, the warrior. 
Whose measures like drum-rolls 
Call men from their mountains. 



The Foefs Art 107 

Fields, hamlets and meadows, 
From the dearest to part ; 
And from all the sure fountains 
Of pride in their strong souls, 
Bids patriot emotions 
Arise and o'erwhelm them. 
And carry them boldly 
To battle and slaughter. 
Where blood flows hke water; 
Espousing the merits 
And dying for causes 
Whose justice they know not. 

Despise not the art 

Of the poet, the singer, 

The follower of Pan 

By the rivers melodious, 

Where sweet naiads linger. 

And the muses divine, — 

Coming down from their mountains 

To bathe in the music 

And float in the waters. 

The song-breathing waters — 

That flow ever on 

From Parnassian fountains, — 

Are charmed till they woo 

And inspire the sweet singer 

With swift inspiration 

And rare divination 

Of heavenly things ; 

Till his song outward rushes 

In musical gushes. 

Such as glorious Apollo, 

And all of the old gods. 

The strong, the judicious, 

Had dehghted to hear: 

And his singing propitious. 



io8 Repetition 

Forever shall follow 
The sons and the daughters 
Of men, as if given 
To sound in their souls, 
As the world onward rolls. 
Through the storm and affright 
Of the dark Stygian night 
The glad music of heaven. 



REPETITION 

Tell me, O warbler! why the dying day 

Paints, as he languishes, those amber seas 
That round the capes of Scarlet Islands play. 

Where float unnumbered golden argosies, 
Wrought into life, upon the canvas mist, 

From every tint of moth and bird and shell 
And every bloom the lover sun has kissed? 

Why wreathe such gladness round his last fare- 
well? 

Tell me, O poet! singing as the night 

Falls on thy silver locks with kindly shade, 
What angel hopes thy lofty muse incite. 

What lovely images thy peace invade. 
Till thou art wearing, like the dying day, 

A mist of joy to gladden that sweet sky 
Whereon thy mortal lustres fade away 

And melt into the bliss that cannot die? 

"A day lives not for its brief span alone. 

But for all futures shines the fruitful sun 
With warmth that touches even the dim un- 
known," 
The minstrel bird made answer " Life shall 
run," 



When the Swallows arc Flying Away 109 

The poet murmured, " singing ever more ; 

And what are we, that, mourning fate or fame, 
We should go trembhng to the peaceful shore, 

Low-browed and groaning with regretful 
shame ?" 

The poet's audience ever shall increase, 

And some may sing, and some may only hear 
The tripping numbers other hands release: 

Yet backward still through many a golden 
year 
The white-haired bard goes chanting, hour by 
hour. 

To some sweet clientage beneath the grass. 
And souls he knows not of perceive his power, 

Hold him secure, and will not let him pass. 

Thus through the ages leaf and flower repeat 

The tender radiance of a long-lost day. 
And earth and sea and sky are more complete 

And perfect, for each broken, faded ray ; 
And still some echo from the poet's strain 

Falls, faint and far, upon the souls of men, 
Or woos sad hearts a moment from their pain. 

Though all forgot the hand that held the pen. 



WHEN THE SWALLOWS ARE FLYING 
AWAY 

The summer is dying, the days shorter growing. 
The stars getting brighter each clear, length'ning 
night. 
While the harvester. Time, hurries on with his 
mowing, 
And seems in his labor of death to delight. 



I lo When the Swallows are JFlying Away 

But now as the leaves, ripening purple and 
golden, 
Like beautiful banners enrich all the day, 

We sit dreaming dreams, conning memories olden. 
And watching the swallows go flying away — 
The glad summer swallows all flying away. 

No more to the voice of ambition or passion 

The spirit gives audience, but listens alone 
To musical idyls of love and compassion, 

That bear us a blessing on every sweet tone. 
A sadness subdued softens every emotion, 

And tempers the fancy's most delicate play. 
And calms in the heart every rising commotion, 

While the hours with the swallows go flying 
away — 
With the glad summer swallows are flying away. 

The rosy-cheeked children come laughing and 
singing 
From rude, happy homes of our earlier days ; 
No shadows of tombs on their fairy brows bring- 

No soiled, bleeding feet from the world's thorny 
ways ; 
We welcome them, kiss them and give them our 
blessing — 
The lips that are dust, and the feet long astray, 
And thrill to their love as they pass, lightly press- 
ing 
Our hands in their own, and go flying away — 
With the beautiful swallows go flying away. 

We have watched, you and I, in the sweet autumn 
weather 
Full many a rich sunset fade out in the west. 

And still, as we've walked in the twilight to- 
gether, 



Across the Snow ill 

Has Hope wandered near us, our welcomest 
guest, 
Till now on this dreamiest eve we behold her 
Again 23ainting heaven and love on the day 
As it fadeth forever, and swiftly enfold her 

All warm to our hearts, that she fly not away — 
That our hope with the swallows shall fly not 
away. 



ACROSS THE SNOW 

Across the snow and over the sand. 

Where summer lingers with song and bloom. 

The festooned oaks of Florida stand 
Enshrouded in odorous gloom; 

Over the mountains, across the snow, 

The blue sky smileth and bendeth low. 

Across the snow and over the sea, 

Italy laughs, like a child at play; 
And her rivers that sing incessantly 

Are wooing the soul away ! 
Over the sea and across the snow 
They are calling me, but I cannot go. 

Across the snow and over the tears. 

The wonder-world of our childhood lies. 

And voices echo across the years 

With whispered questions and low replies, 

Over the graves and across the snow, 

The children are calling who loved me so. 

Across the snow and beyond the doubt, 
There lieth a land so sweet and fair 



112 Winsome yennie 

That none who enter will turn about 

To bring us tidings of loved ones there; 
Over the doubt and across the snow 
The dear ones beckon and I shall go. 



WINSOME JENNIE 

Jennie's head was proud and queenly 

With the curling gold it wore, 
Wavy as the brooklet's laughter, 

And her face was rippled o'er 
With alternate smiles and blushes, 

In the days that are no more: 
In the w^ell-remembered mornings 

Of the days that are no more. 

We shall meet no more together 

When the stars are in the sky; 
We shall rake no more the meadows 

When the morning sun is high; 
Happy Jennie, darling Jennie, 

With the lustre in her eye, 
Jennie singing with the thrushes 

In the merry days gone by. 

Oh! the world was fair and gracious 

When our youthful hearts were bold ; 
.Still the sunshine falls as sweetly, 

But these formal folk are cold; 
Not the earnest, hearty people 

Of the sainted days of old; 
Not the strong, unselfish people 

Of the ruder days of old. 

Still the river wanders singing. 
And the children from the school 



Winsome yennie 113 

Bare their dimpled feet, as we did, 

Wading in the self -same pool; 
But the master, the beloved 

Monarch of the gentle rule, 
Lies upon the hillside sleeping. 

Calmly, as he once did rule. 

Oh! as Fancy's cunning fingers 

Touch the singing strings of gold, 
And her harp repeats the measures 

Of the sunny days of old, 
Jennie's self is in the music, 

Never formal, jDroud nor cold, 
Gentle Jennie, winsome Jennie, 

Jennie with the heart of old. 

In the orchards, where the russets 

Hold within their golden rinds 
Nectar fit for gods of Hellas, 

Voices low are on the winds; 
On the haunted winds of evening, 

Prattle, such as youthful minds 
Gather into speech, the flutter 

Of the wings of growing minds. 

And these murmurs, falling faintly 

On the ear, like distant calls 
Of the mellow, merry bugle. 

Or the laugh of waterfalls, 
Echo from that happy castle, 

With th' Apollo-pictured walls, 
From the fortress of our childhood, 

With its angel-guarded walls. 

Voices long unused to singing 

Any song of doubt or woe, 
Voices trained for heavenly uses 

By the seraphs long ago, 



114 Winsome jFennie 

Mingle In the flowing measures, 
Softly glad and sweetly low; 

But there's none exceedeth Jennie's — 
Jennie's voice so sweet and low. 

Once again her slender fingers 

Lie within my nut-stained hand, 
And we wander where the Autumn 

Pours her splendor on the land, 
Wondering over Nature's problems 

That we cannot understand, 
Guessing much at many matters 

That we do not understand. 

Why the old leaves fade and perish 

Only that the new may grow, 
Why the lovely flowers must wither 

And give place to mud and snow. 
Why do children die, and whither 

Do the pretty children go? 
Now, as then, but echo answers, 

Where do pretty children go? 

Never thought of love came to us 

As we wandered side by side ; 
When we parted, heavy-hearted. 

Sorrow flowing like a tide, 
Still no stream of mortal passion 

Swept our souls, unsatisfied. 
Into dreams of one sweet future 

Where they should be satisfied. 

Yet in many a rural picture 
Do my willing eyes behold 

Laughing Jennie, winsome Jennie, 
With her tresses like spun gold; 

She, the sunniest smile of morning. 
In the budding days of old, 



Voices of Song- 115 



Jennie singing with the thrushes 
In the merry morns of old. 



Jennie's hair is flecked with silver, 

And her girls are reigning now ; 
Jennie's throat is clasped with diamond;;, 

There are wrinkles on her brow. 
Does she dream, in silks and satins, 

Of the boy behind the plow, 
Of the barefoot boy she cherished 

When he toiled behind the plow? 

It was well for us we parted 

When the morn was on the shore; 
It is well that we shall wander 

In that morning land no more! 
Ours is but the same old story. 

Still repeated o'er and o'er, 
Youth with forward gaze, and age that 

Sighs for days that are no more. 



VOICES OF SONG 

The odor songs that blossoms sing 
In their delight of summer days. 

No voice, no reed, no sounding string, 
No ecstasy of tremulous keys. 

Can match their silent melodies, 
Their excellence of praise. 

The songs of birds that flow and fall 
With all the sunny tides of spring, 

And to the eager spirit call. 

In measures softly glad and sweet, 



1 1 6 Voices of Song 

To rise and pay the tribute meet 

To Nature's gracious King, — 

Are they not minstrelsies of praise 
With no imperfectness to mar, 

No faulty notes, no feeble lays, 

But fraught with all the joyful tune 

That thrills the soul of rapturous June, 
Where peace and plenty are? 

The songs of children, lisping songs, 
That tell of innocence and joy, — 

What nameless melody prolongs 
The influence of each tiny note 

That warbles from the swelling throat 
Of timorous girl or boy ? 

The old man, standing by his tomb, 
Heeds not the sad refrain of death, 

For yonder, where the roses bloom. 
He hears the children's song arise. 

And all the day before him lies. 

Fresh in the morning's breath. 

The songs of flowers and brooks and birds, 
The melodies that children make, 

And those delicious, deathless words 
That love to music weds alway — 

Fond echoes growing day by day — 
No grief their spell can break. 

Where faith exalts and hope inspires 
The throbbing notes that outward pour 

Till every trembling soul aspires, 
And on the song's melodious wings 

The yearning spirit upward springs 
To worship and adore, 



The Bells 117 

There is a taste of Heaven below, 
An influence linking soul to soul, 

A sweeter music than we know 
In our poor voices, an excess 

Of inward joy and happiness 
To melodize the whole. 

O, Song! thou spirit, heavenly, fair, 
As are the angel choirs that move 

To thy delightful measures, where 
No sin can enter, make us thine 

And crown us with thy joy divine, 
And fill us with thy love ! 

And Thou who art of all the source, — 
All good, all joy, all seeming ill. 

All life or death, attraction, force, — 
Let every note our souls upraise 

Be hallowed sweetly to Thy praise 
And tempered to thy will ! 



THE BELLS 

I HEAR the ringing of the bells, the bells. 
Announcing, " Christ has come;" 

I hear the cannon in the street, 
And the rolling of the drum, 

And the marching tread of a thousand feet. 
And I ask if Christ has come. 

I hear the ringing of the bells, the bells, 
Proclaiming, " Christ is here;" 

And I see the children of want and sin, 
Hovering far or near. 

In the country's quiet, the city's din, 
And I wonder if Christ is here. 



ii8 Corabell 

i hear the ringing of the bells, the bells, 

Echoing, " Christ is King;" 
And I see in a score of Christian lands 

Oppression's brooding wing, 
And murderous hearts and bloody hands. 

And I wonder if Christ is King. 

I hear the ringing of the bells, the bells, 
Resounding, " Christ is known;" 

And I see the treachery, know the hate 
And the bitter passions, grown 

Alike in the hearts of humble or great, 
And I wonder if Christ is known. 

I hear the ringing of the bells, the bells, 
Proclaiming, " Christ is here;" 

And I hear a baby's prattling glee. 
And I bid farewell to fear, 

For wherever a sinless child may be, 
The sweet Christ dwelleth near. 



CORABELL 

Fair comrades, do not chide me 
For moods that ill betide me; 
A shadow walks beside me. 

Clothed in a mist of woe; 
A wraith, and a real presence, 
A vapor, a sorrow's essence ; 

It chills and haunts me so 
That, for all your merry-making, 
My heart is full to breaking 

With a grief you can not know. 

Hark, how the winds are crying. 
And the leafless branches sighing, 



Corabell 1 19 

Where Corabell is lying 

Under the ice and snow! 
Glad Corabell whose bosom 
Thrilled to bird and blossom 

Warmed to the rose's glow; 
Whose true heart stilled its beating 
When love and hope were meeting 

In tryst there long ago. 

The bees are gone from the clover, 
The butterfly, the rover. 
That flew Hke a fickle lover 

From honeyed bloom to bloom. 
Is dead in the grass ; the cricket 
No more awakes the thicket 

At the fall of evening's gloom ; 
And Corabell is sleeping, 
While her mother sits a- weeping 

In the dear, old-fashioned room. 

What now is my dream of glory, 
When grass is growing o'er thee, 
And my soul has gone before me 

To share thy silent rest? 
The drum has a throb of sadness, 
The bugle's mellow gladness, 

That falls on a heart oppressed, 
Sings, " Corabell, sweet Cora, 
The winsome winds deplore thee, 

Thou fairest, purest, best!" 

The poet's rhymed emotion 
Sobs Hke the wailing ocean. 
When thrilled with love's devotion 

For one who dies at morn ; 
In the morning warm and tender. 
When the sun's advancing splendor 



I20 A Mist of White Laces 

Is on the blooming corn ; 
In the morning's holy gladness, 
When death is a triple sadness, 

And the sweetest things are born. 

" Is Corabell a vision " 

You ask " of a dream elysian ? 

And is the poet's mission 

To picture its fading ray ? 
To faintly echo over 
The words of a yearning lover 

Who cannot go nor stay, 
The cry of a trust immortal 
That waits at the future's portal 

Till the stone be rolled away, 
And the Christ of hope arisen, 
And the dead steps from her prison 

In the w^armth of an endless day?" 

Know, then, the world is sighing 
For Corabell's low lying, 
And love and faith are flying 

Across the bars of night. 
Away in the dim hereafter 
We listen for girlish laughter, 

When the morn shall break in sight: 
But the winds to-night are weeping 
Where Corabell is sleeping 

And the snow is cold and white. 



A MIST OF WHITE LACES 

A MIST of white laces, 

An odor of bloom, — 
And the fairest of faces 

Is lost in the gloom. 



A Mist of White Laces 

A mist of white laces, 

A beautiful face; 
Henceforth every place is 

Divine with their grace. 

A tinkle of laughter, 

A silvery note, 
Which echo speaks after 

With heart in her throat, 

A tinkle of laughter, 

A quaver of song, 
That music thereafter 

Shall ever prolong. 

A kiss thrown by fingers 
As sweet as the dawn, 

And its warmth ever lingers 
Till life is withdrawn. 

A kiss thrown by fingers 
From lips of red rose, 

And the heart w^here it lingers 
Has lost its repose. 

O, mist of white laces! 

O, kisses and song ! 
I know your sweet place is 

Where angels belong. 

And laces and kisses 
And songs that inspire 

In a world such as this is, 
Wake heavens of desire. 



BARD AND BLOSSOM 

Ha! my laughing violet, 

In your tiny calyx set, 

With your winsome eye of blue 

Looking all my spirit through, 

While you seem to nod and say, 

" Old Spring poet, go your way ! " 

Tell me, roguish little sweet, 
Isn't there some small deceit, 
Child-like, make-believe pretense 
In that pouting innocence 
Of indifference that you show, 
When these rhyjiiers praise you so? 



PRETTY MARY, O! 

No inore with tears I count the years 

When sorrow wooed me long ago ; 
Though hearts must bleed when they have need, 

And friends may wound you worse than foe ; 
.Smiles come at last, when grief goes past; 

But oh! our thoughts did vary so 
When I sat back, with head bowed down, 
And you stood up before the town 

A-marrying pretty Mary, O! 

O, fairest maid! through sun and shade 
And storm and darkness brooding so. 

She was my star that smiled afar. 
The only lamp I cared to know! 

You soared on high and from the sky 



A Song 123 

My pretty star bore swiftly, Joe ; 
And then to say " God bless you both ! " 
It tore me like a cruel oath, 

When you had wed my Mary, O! 

Lo, time has wings that bring sweet things 

To hide the wounds that rend us so : 
A winsome touch that thrills me much 

Is now upon my shoulder, Joe, 
And gentle eyes whose light I prize 

More than all dreams I used to know, 
Look into mine, and we renew 
And send the thankful love of two 

To Joe and pretty Mary, O ! 



A SONG 

The air is rich with summer bloom, 
But Summer's friends are flying. 

The rose is losing its perfume. 
The dusk comes down on wings of gloom, 

And the Summer day is dying. 

Sit down, O friend ! and live once more 
With me the past time over. 

The Summers that we knew before 
Experience taught me to deplore. 

Or thou became a rover. 

Fair youth and innocence go by 
Locked hand in hand together. 

And, as they pass, let's you and I 
Recall our youth, join hands and cry, 

" God bless this Summer weather!" 



TWO LITTLE GIRLS 

I 

Two little faces, cheerful and bright, 
Smile at the window, just where the light 
Comes from the full moon, comes from the stars, 
To fall o'er their tresses in silvery bars. 



Two little voices, eager to greet 

Papa, dear papa, who comes down the street; 

With flutters of lavighter, and kisses like rain, 

Two sweet little girls meet their papa again; 

Searching his pockets for candies and things, 

Teasing for pennies, worrying for strings, 

Asking for stories, crying for toys. 

The two little girls are his cares and his joys. 



Four little brown hands, chubby and slight, 
Hold on to mamma from morning till night, 
Pull at her apron, pvdl at her hair. 
Lay in her own hand, that once was so fair. 



Two little bodies for mamma to dress, 
To worry and toil for, to love and caress, 
To watch in the night time, in sorrow and pain, 
No matter how weary her limbs and her brain. 



Two little cherubs that, mamma declares, 
Are angels descended on love's shining stairs, 
To bless her and crown her with life's greenest 

bays, 
Are the bliss of their mother, the joy of her days. 

124 



THE SONG OF VIVIENNE 

There is Winter on the mere, 
Frozen streams are in the glen, 
But 'tis Summer in the heart 
Of the best of noble men. 
As he sings his lightsome rune, 
"Happy, happy Vivienne!" 
As he chants his vernal rhyme, 
" Happy be, my Vivienne!" 

Bear away the crimson leaves, 
Rude Euroclydon, and blow 
Strength to many a heart that grieves 
In the tainted air of woe ! 
He is strong to buffet thee; 
Storm and turmoil suit him best; 
He, the pride of noble men, 
Bears a brave heart in his breast. 

Pour your wealth of white snows down. 
Leaden clouds that shroud the day! 
Dreary country, cheerless town. 
Children prisoned from their play, — 
What are they to such as he. 
Bold to face the Winter grim? 
What are they to happy me, — 
Happy, being loved by him? 

Shake the timid soul with fear. 
Howling through the naked grove. 
Winds of Winter! Lo, I hear 
In your mad tones notes of love, 

125 



126 Long Ago 

Strong and passionate and brave, 
As my hero sings to me, 
" I will love thee in my grave, 
Living I will worship thee." 



LONG AGO 

Long ago! where the ranks of maple trees 
Flung their red crowns on the breeze, 

And the orchis faded slow 

To the airs of long ago, 

Long ago, 
Our sweet Adonais lay dead, 
With a glory round his head; 
Heart by Cupid's arrow smitten, 
Lowly name in water written; 

Then our souls were filled with woe, 

As we laid his form alow, 

In that saddest long ago. 

Long ago. 

Long ago! when the June with billowy mirth 
Poured her blossoms on the earth, 

And life's rhythmic stream did flow 
Bankful, shouting, long ago. 
Long ago, 
Sweet Urania, gently wise. 
Softly came from Paradise, 
Opened her blue eyes so tender 
On the ardent morning's splendor; 
And we wept with joy to know 
That her smiles were beaming so. 
In those days of long ago. 

Long ago. 



Long Ago 127 

Long ago, when the milder vernal airs 
Wooed the song-birds back in pairs, 

And the sap began to flow 

In the trees of long ago, 

Long ago, 
Abelard and Heloise 
Braved a hundred staring eyes, 
Joined their hands in true love token. 
And the solemn words were spoken. 

And the good man, soft and low. 

Prayed God blessings to bestow 

On their twin hearts, long ago, 
Long ago. 

Long ago, when the world was white with frost. 
And the winds, like spirits lost. 

Wailed and wandered to and fro, 
Shrieking, in the long ago. 
Long ago, 
Then our Aristides old 
Bowed his forehead white and cold, 
Dropped his staff, and murmured slowly 
Broken prayers unto the Holy, 
And our spirits felt the blow 
Death was dealing, — even so 
Did we sorrow long ago, 

Long ago. 

Long ago, as the seasons hurried by, 
Some were born to smile and die ; 

All were given to joy and woe, 

Alternating long ago. 

Long ago: 
Love's requital still denied, 
Youthful poets pined and died ; 
But the babe's life opening sweetly, 
And the marriage made discreetly, 



128 Poor Madeline's Song 

Thrilled with joy life's onward flow; 
Age and wisdom, lying low, 
Often warned us long ago, 

Long ago. 

Long ago! Who shall say when first that word 
From the lips of man was heard? 

When the morning stars aglow 

Sang their hymn so long ago, 
Long ago, 
In their happy chorus cast, 
Were there not dreams of the past? 
Will not blessed angels winging 
Through the fields of heaven, singing, 

Chant forever, soft and low, 

As the ages onward flow. 

Of the sad, sweet long ago, 
Lonof aofo? 



POOR MADELINE'S SONG 

I SIT and I sing. 

With the dark cricket king. 
As the long suinmer day goeth down. 

When the eve stars peep out, 

Then I laugh and I shout. 
For my lover will come from the town. 

His hair is as black 

As the wood-beetle's back. 
And his eyes arc as dark as the dell. 

When the dank, moonless midnight is riding 
on high. 

As we meet, his full face, like the soft morn- 
ing sky, 
Lighteth up, for he loveth me well. 



Poor Madeline's Song 129 

O lover of mine! 

All my being is thine, 
Yet I wring my thin hands in a dream : 

A dream of all woe, 

Wherein dead warriors go 
Sinking down in a dark, stagnant stream, 

Whose inky waves creep 

Where the pines ever keep 
Their watch o'er the bones of the dead, 

That a spirit, who rode on the lava's red 
waves 

With noises of earthquakes and yawning of 
graves. 
Slew once in that valley of dread. 

Go, dream, from my brain ! 

You would craze me again: 
And my lover did not go to war! 

Now rises and swells 

The sweet chime of the bells 
And smiles my betrothal-eve's star. 

All in white I will ride 

By my dark hero's side. 
And the envious maidens shall sigh: 

As we blithely step in at the good parson's 
door. 

And I lean on his arm as we walk up the 
floor. 
Oh, who'll be so happy as I ? 

Late! late! is it late? 

Do I query with fate? 
Why falls not that kingliest tread ? 

O ho! so you say 

That my hair has turned gray. 
That my hero, my lover 's long dead : 

Go back with your lie! 



130 Hymn to Night 

I will look to the sky 
And believe the sweet angels instead. 

Far off, mid the stars, sounds a soft, golden 

bell. 
And I know that the seraphs are ringing it 
well : 
In the morninsf we twain shall be wed. 



HYMN TO NIGHT 



O Night, upon thy myriad streaming wings 
Of throbbing darkness, when the stars were mute 
And angel choirs and hosts of heavenly things 
Upon the verge of time stood awed, irresolute. 
My soul has met thee there, alone, forlorn, 
Has met thee there and dared to dream of morn, 
To dream of morning and thank God that I a 
soul was born. 



O, passing wonderful and full of love 
And strength and glory and the boundless thought 

That fills and thrills all things below, — above. 
With life and motion, I have something caught, 
Faintly, indeed, yet hints of thy delight 
When thou art in thy royal robes bedight 
And Suns and Systems are the jewels in thy 
crown, O Night! 

Ill 

With drowsy insect music manifold, 
The gurgling flow of waters, tinkling bells 

Of herds, that crop the herbage on the wold. 
And the late lover's song that feebly swells 



Love Me Little^ Love Me Long 131 

And dies upon the languid summer air, 
Oft has Night met me and with kindly care 
Folded her fond, indulgent wings about me 
there. 

IV 

O, love the night! for she is beautiful, 
And majesty himself sits throned with her: 
The well-beloved, the strong, the dutiful, 
Venus and Odin, Ceres, Jupiter, 

And all the powers of matter, force and mind, 

Are in the service of the night resigned, 

The great-souled night that to our little faults is 
blind. 



"LOVE ME LITTLE, LOVE ME LONG" 

" Love me little, love me long!" 

'Tis the burden of my song; 

Ardor ever seems to be 

Born of love's inconstancy. 

Those who love too much forget ; 

Those who trust too much regret ; 

Moderation breeds no wrong: 
" Love me little, love me long!" 

Love me long! 

"Love me little, love me long!" 
From the hotly breathing throng, 
Whose affections burn as fire 
Till love dieth with desire, 
Lead me gently far away 
In cool meadow paths to stray, 
Where the robin lifts his song : 

" Love me little, love me long!" 

Love me long! 



132 Evening Song of the Dissatisfied Soul 

" Love me little, love me long!" 
Listen! 'tis no idle song; 
He w^ho loves his bride too well, 
Wearies oft and breaks the spell, 
Or, in sorrow and distress. 
Loves his children's mother less, 
Gentle love is pure and strong: 

" Love me little, love me long!" 

Love me long! 

" Love me little, love me long!" 
You I chose from all the throng 
Of the noble and the brave, 
Walk beside me to the grave! 
Do not greedily devour 
All our love in one sweet hour! 
As I sing it in my song : 

"Love me little, love me long!" 

Love me long! 



EVENING SONG OF THE DISSATIS. 
FIED SOUL 

There is a light along the west, 

And red mists floating there. 
There is a light along the west; 
But the heart is sad in my weary breast, 

And heavy with doubt and care. 

A bird is singing his evening song, 
And the swallows are flying away. 

A I'obin is singing his evening song; 

But the way is dark, and the road is long, 
And I can not go nor stay. 



The Singing Wind 133 

The blossom is folding a drop of dew 

To rest on its fragrant heart. 
The blossom is folding its gem of dew; 
But nothing shall ever the years renew, 

Nor make my dreams depart. 

The happy twilight is calm and sweet, 

But my soul is sad and lone. 
The fading twilight is pure and sweet; 
But my heavy heart, and my sluggish feet. 

Are bound to a world unknown. 



THE SINGING WIND 

O, SINGING wind ! O, lingering wind ! 

Bear happy dreams to me 

From where my darling sits and sings 
And hears the murmurous stir of wings 
That fly incessantly. 

O, winsome wind! O, wayward wind! 

Fly o'er the bending corn 

And bear my kisses to her hand, 
That plucks the lilies where the land 
Is newly washed with morn. 

O, lisping wind! O, whisp'ring wind! 
Bear back her words to me! 

I perish for a single thought; 

For life were vain and fame were nought 
Without love's company. 



CANADIAN POEMS 

WRITTEN WHILE SOJOURNING IN LOWER 
CANADA, 1882 TO 1885 



»3S 



ON MEMPHREMAGOG 

Lightly dip the slender oar! 

Here the water lilies are; 

And yon soft, horizon star 
Is the light house on the shore. 

As the twilight's deep'ning hush 

Lifts the wave's voice on the sand, 
Softly reach and drown thy hand 

Where the sunset's latest blush 

Makes the water rich as wine: 

Now thou hast them, fresh and fair! 
With the purer lilies there, 

Let them on thy breast recline. 

All day long our little boat, 

Floating on through light and shade, 
Has our eager souls conveyed 

Like a sentient thing afloat. 

We have watched the shadows run 
On the hillsides, swift and far. 
Flying each in vapor car. 

Chased by cohorts of the sun: 

Heard the ripples laugh and play 
On the emerald islet's shore. 
Break and fall and laugh no more. 

As the west wind died away. 

Mirrored in these floods that lie 

Smiling granite hills between, 



1 38 On Meniphretnagog 

We have seen the headhmds green, 
Fickle cloud and steadfast sky ; 

Passing silhouette, sudden light 

With each tint and tender hue 
Of the mountain's hazy blue 

And the birch wood's mist of white; 

Paused to watch the red sun go 
Down behind a mountain old, 
Turning all its crown to gold, 

Molten in a furnace glow; 

Kindling wonder-lands of flame. 

Weird and mystical and strange 
As the splendid thoughts that range 

Through a young man's dream of fame; 

Glories interchanging slow — 

Fields where sun-born spirits fly, 
Scarlet winged, through amber sky, 

Fading like the long ago. 

Floating on these waters calm, 

All our lives have been in tune 
To that rare, unlettered rune, 

Nature's sweet, mysterious psalm: 

And our souls have listened long. 
Rapt and ravished by the flow 
Of the numbers soft and low 

In that ultimate of song. 

All too deep our bliss, to-day. 

Flowed for thought of reel or line; 
We are fishers, but decline 

Angling where the genii play. 



Magog River ^39 

Hellas' dear, immortal throng 

Might be resurrected here, — 
Satyr, cyclops, muse severe 

And sweet Pan with reed and song. 

Ave! but how the darkness grows! 

Hark, the keel grates on the strand; 

Softly, gently let us land. 
Leave the song and seek the prose! 

Dip no more the laboring oar! 

Here our friends and comrades are, 

And this soft, horizon star 
Is the lighthouse on the shore. 



MAGOG RIVER 

A FLOOD there is that flows and falls 

Where elms their pendant branches lean, 

Or, high above its rocky walls 
The firs are ever green. 

From Memphremagog's burnished skein 

Of silver, tangled in the hdls. 
Its downward leaping course is ta'en. 

Amid the roar of inills. 

Not thus of old the red man knew 
The happy Magog, wild and free; 

When flood to flood the waters grew 
Rejoicmg to the sea. 

The rise of trout, the dip of wing, 
Its own glad song to rock and glen, 

Or stealthy tread of some wild thing, 
Alone disturbed it then. 



140 Magog River 

And yet the river seems to feel, 

Though bound in traffic's prosy ways 

And harnessed to the creaking wheel, 
The joy of savage days. 

And ever more the poet stream, 
That chafes like Pegasus in pound, 

Renews its old delightful dream. 
While all the mills go round; 

And laughs from rock to rock along, 
Or rests within its little lake. 

Fair as the iris joy of song 
The mists of echo make ; 

And thence again, with eager shout, 
Takes up its winsome, bonnie way. 

As graceful as the bream and trout 
That in its waters play; 

Till, leaping down from higher lands, 
It joins the broad St. Francis tide. 

Where Sherbrooke in her beauty stands 
The wedded streams beside. 

With spindle's hum and shuttle's noise 
The foundries clang, the forges flame; 

Here toil is king and men rejoice 
And bless the Magog's name. 

" Even thus," I cry, " the humble bard. 
Who fain would only shout and sing. 

Must turn, to win the world's regard. 
And do some useful thing. 

" Nor yet withhold his tuneful voice, 
But sweeten labor with a strain 

Whose tones shall linger and rejoice 
When he forgets his pain." 



THE STRICKEN MONARCH 



The ragged firs, knee deep in snow, 
Stand shivering by the frozen lake. 
Where winds from Gaspe, moaning low, 
Lift the long drifts and liglitly shake 
Their icy fragments through the air, 
And strew them in the wild beast's lair 
And down the gorge and through the brake. 



And here the monarch of the wood, 
With drooping antler, piercing eye, 
That tell of thirst and want of food, 
Hides where no living thing is nigh; 
For in this deeply-drifted snow 
The proud beast can no farther go. 
And he must rest or he must die. 



But hark ! his quick ears catch the sound 
The hunter's gliding snow-shoe makes; 
He springs to fly, with sudden bound; 
The crust beneath each dark hoof breaks; 
He plunges in his icy bath. 
He rages with despair and wrath; 
The white foam flies in frozen flakes. 



He yields at last, but hears once more 
The snow-shoes gliding, strives to fly 
And wallows helpless, \vho before 



142 Icy Air 

Out-sped the wind : And now to die, 
To feel the murderer's coward blow! 
Oh, bitter fate! 'Tis done; and lo! 
For joy some hungry half-breeds cry. 



ICY AIR 



A CANADIAN IDYL 



O! BUDS may break in scarlet bloom 

Where Summer laughs and sings, 
And souls be drunken with perfume 

Each vocal zephyr brings; 
But here, within this frozen zone, 

We'll weave with patient care, 
From vagrant sound and wand'ring tone. 

The song of icy air. 



The snow is white upon the hill, 

The lake is muffled o'er. 
The wood, through all its depths, is still, 

And, by the rocky shore, 
The river's voice no more is heard, 

Nor soundeth anywhere 
The insects' hum, the chirp of bird. 

To thrill the icy air. 



But far away, on drifted roads, 
The oxen, plowing slow. 



Icy Air 143 

Urged by the drivers' stinging goads, 

Are trampling down the snow; 
And bells from yon half-hidden town 

Ring o'er the white despair 
A gladness softly fading down 

The waves of icy air. 

IV 

In distant forests, hungry deer, 

By hungry men pursued, 
Plunge through the snow, and touch with fear 

The whole wide solitude; 
But in the half-breed's humble shed 

Is little thought of care. 
The chase is good, the children fed; 

Who shrinks from icy air? 



From camps of lumbermen, that sleep 

Beside the frozen stream. 
The smoke curls up, and seems to weep 

Above life's faded dream ; 
For nought gives outward hint to-day 

Of blossom fresh and fair, 
Or tender leaf or budding spray, 

To cheer this icy air. 

VI 

But in the city men may sing. 

And choral numbers flow 
In praise of Winter, cheerful King 

Of sleet and ice and snow; 
Toboggans glide and skate-steels ring 

And sleigh-bells tinkle there; 
But want still walks, a haggard thing, 

To mock tliis icy air. 



144 Pictures in Ice 

VII 

In happy homes and loving hearts, 

Where peace and comfort dwell, 
The winter nought of gloom imparts, — 

Their joy cannot dispel: 
But what of her who sups the dregs? 

Can heaven be still aware 
Of all her bitter need that begs 

For death's most icy air? 

VIII 

O God! who wateretn every land 

Where tropic glories lie, 
Let still the shadow of Thy hand 

Relume this northern sky; 
For song and bloom and springing leaf 

Each anxious heart prepare, 
And strengthen every sweet belief 

To brave this icy air. 



PICTURES IN ICE 

We knew in the night, when the moon was on 
high. 
And the air was as still as the pulses of death, 
Save the roar where the river sent up its white 
breath, 
That the frost was at work on a window near by 
With his pencils of ice, and we said morn would 

show 
Mimic glacier and iceberg and miniature floe. 

But what was our wonder when all the wide pane. 
In the light of the morrow, was instinct with 
spring, 



Pictures i7t Ice 145 

And radiant with summer and many a fair 
thing,— 
With fern and with lichen, with grasses and grain, 

With plumes from the maize and soft straws 
from the pine. 

Trailing sprays from the elm, and slight, wan- 
dering vine! 

And each was so perfect, so delicate, true, 
So faithful to outline, to character, grace, 
To every small loveliness, tenderest trace 
Oti corolla, or stem, when its glory is new. 

That we blessed the cold spirit whose genius 

had caught 
And quaintly materialized Nature's great 
thought. 

O spirit of frost! there's an impulse divine 
Inspiring each crystal that shoots into form 
With beauty's ideal, to gladden and charm ; 
And in these weird, wonderful pictures of thine 
We trace the same finger that paints the moth's 

wing, 
And writes the glad notes that the wood-thrushes 
sing. 

What a wonder is this, that the frost which destroys 
The fair things of summer, should keep in his 

heart 
Their impress and likeness, to gladden his art 
Till it takes, in the hours of his triumphs and joys. 
But the frail, lovely forms that his palsying 

breath 
Has consigned with a touch, to the darkness of 
death! 

And, my child, with your soft, dimpled cheek in 
a glow 



146 May in the North 

At the kiss of the cold, there's a tint of the rose 

Sifted into your blood, from the wind as it blows, 

And the light in your face, that we mark as you 

go, 

And the grace of your step were previsioned 

and wrought 
By the sensitive touch of God's intimate thought. 

O quickening and formative presence divine! 
That dwelleth alike in fleet vapor, dull clod, 
In world-bearing nebulae, flowers on the sod. 

In heat or in cold, all this glory is thine! 

Nor hast thou inspired the frost spirit in vain. 
To trace these most exquisite things on the pane. 



MAY IN THE NORTH 

Now once again on field and hill 

The violet's eyes are blue, 
The anemone and daffodil 

Their loveliness renew. 

The birch uncloses tender hands, 
The maple sheds its bloom, 

But still in sight old winter stands 
With threat'ning brow of gloom. 

Ay! frown and threaten all you may. 
Old tyrant, fierce and strong! 

The sun is moving up this way, 
I hear the robin's song! 

A tremor of the bygone springs 
Is quick'ning in my blood; 

The children shout, the brooklet sings 
"And roars the falling flood." 



May in the North 147 

Once more the emerald grass shall grow 

Above the winter's dead, 
And summer bend her iris bow 

Where clouds were dull as lead. 

Here are the blackbirds, and the joy 

Of many an olden year 
Is in their songs. Come, little boy! 

Farewell, gray man austere ! 

Come, little boy, for you and I 

And I and you, are one; 
We'll follow where the swallows fly. 

We'll cheer the setting sun. 

For us the sparrow hides her nest 

In copses green and low, 
The bluebird suns his purple breast, 

The tortoise moveth slow. 

The saucy chipmunk digs his hole. 

The shining lizard slides, 
Her hammock swings the oriole, 

The rush-grown pond abides. 

For us the worm is in the ground, 

The fish is in the stream ; 
And energy and health abound. 

And care is but a dream. 

And so, my boy, my little boy, 

Be happy while you may ! 
Your harvests frosts shall not destroy, 

Nor shall your wealth decay. 

The treasure-trove of childhood hours 
Alone survives the years j 



148 May in the North 

Its blossoms are perennial flowers 
That memory wets with tears. 

The poet sings his sweetest songs 

Of youth and vernal skies, 
And children walk in joyous throngs 

The fields of paradise. 

Give me a touch of heaven and spring 

And each vmfolding leaf, 
And bursting bud and sprouting thing 

Renews some sweet belief, — 

Some sweet belief, some tender thought, 
Some memory vague and old, 

Some charm the blessing seasonswrought 
When love was more than gold ; 

Till I can smell the budding spice 
And feel the woodland hush 

Thrilled by that forest cantatrice, 
The wildly- warbling thrush. 

No more I see the northern pine, 

Nor wait the daisies' bloom ; 
The blue-bells in the fields are mine. 

And mine the haw's perfume. 

For me the Indiana woods 

Put on their best attire. 
And all their tangled solitudes 

Are glad with youth's desire: 

The red bud flames beside the stream. 
The orchard boughs are white ; 

The catbird sings his tipsy dream. 
And I sing you " Good night." 



TO J. W. R. 

IN RESPONSE TO AN OPEN LETTER 

I HOLD that he who touches one glad string, 
And maketh music for a weary soul, 

Brings into Hfe a sweetly gracious thing, 
A power to bless, to gladden, to console; 

And, Riley, oft in some rare song of thine 

Have I perceived this tenderness divine. 

But in this "Open Letter" comes to me 
That subtlest influence of the poet's art 

That tells the poet's love in melody 

Which, like a flood, o'erflows the yearning heart, 

And sets the pulses beating soft and low 

The gentle raptures of the rhythm's flow. 

I can but whisper " thanks " a hundred times, 

And, reaching out a thousand miles or more, 
Cry: "Here, dear friend! I heed your pleading 
rhymes. 
Give me your hand. I'll squeeze it somewhat 
sore, 
And make you shout: Hold on, sir, not so hard! 
If that means love, pray give me less regard." 

That fickle goddess, Fortune, did you dream 

That she is but an idle, lazy sprite. 
Who never dares to cross a swollen stream. 

Nor brave the perils of a starless night. 
And is no partner for a poet's mood 
That finds in bitter roots the sweetest food? 

149 



I50 To J, W, R. 

Think! had she taken Burns from humble Ajr, 
Dressed him in purple, coddled him with wine, 

What hand, inspired by love's incessant care, 
Had given us Bonny Doon or Auld Lang Syne? 

The last man lingering when the years have fled, 

Shall still hear Homer singing for his bread. 

Kind words that speak of sympathetic thought, 
Such as you mention from a late Review, 

Are not the " honeyed lies " by Fortune taught, 
For they are thrilled and quickened through 
and through 

With human interest in a toiler's fate 

Which " fortune's fools " would only desolate. 

One bids adieu to youth, if friends increase 
As age comes on, with less of vain regret, 

And Eastw^ard-pointing shadows rest in peace 
Where Morning's wandering heliotropes were 
set; 

Come sun for shade, for heliotrope love's rose, 

To smile and bloom above our last repose! 

Anent this theme, my fiftieth birthday brought 
Letters and token from wide-sundered friends, 

Filled with the tenderness of kindly thought. 
Like music blown from earth's remotest ends; — 

From gray-haired Gallagher, still brave and strong, 

The grand old patriarch of Western song, — 

From House and Harris, Jordan, Catherwood, 
Julian and Mathews, Cooper, — aye! and more 

Than I can mention of our singing brood, 

And from dear friends and neighbors by the 
score ; 

From mothers, toiling in their busy spheres. 

From statesmen, scholars, toil-scarred pioneers. 



To J. T, W. 151 

And all alike are dear, alike are sweet. 
As, to a lost child, in a city strange, 

A mother's voice is, echoing down the street 
Of love's divineness that can never change: 

And all these tokens, blending, mingling, make 

An amulet I wear for love's dear sake. 

Sherbrooke, March Si 1883 



TO J. T. W. 

For you who love the sea and the green woods. 

The summer sail upon the mountain lake, 
The vernal gladness of rejoicing floods. 

And all sweet sounds that woodland voices 
make; 
Whose ear is ever close to nature's heart, 

Each year must bring a music of its own, 
With tenderer chords and more exquisite art 

Than any that your former days have known. 

And so we cry, from fullest hearts, to-day, 

" Long may the genial light and warmth en- 
dure. 
To shed their bliss about your onward way. 

And make a happy future still secure!" 
For souls that keep forever young and fair 

Have little need to mourn the dying years 
That put their snowy blossoms in our hair 

And ripen us with mingled joy and tears. 

Though many New Years come and Old Years go. 
Each sunny season brings its singing bees. 

When soft winds sigh and tender blossoms grow, 
And Heaven is mirrored in the pulsing seas. 



152 Song of the Winter Carnival 

In gentle souls, that kindly nature keeps 

Warmed in her bosom, Summer never dies, 

And when above our clay the winter weeps, 
'Twill still be summer in the peaceful skies. 

So, happy New Year, happy, happy still, 

To you and all you cherish, far or near, 
May good prevail above each passing ill 

And smiles of joy replace each transient tear ! 
May Heaven bend down to you on sweetest 
wings. 

And Earth's fair bounties ripen at your feet. 
And love and hope and all divinest things 

Conspire to make your happiness complete. 

January 1, 1884 

SONG OF THE WINTER CARNIVAL 

[Montreal, 1884.] 

The South has a balmier breath, 

It has wonders of blossom and song; 
But its hot airs are freighted with death 

And its cyclones are murderously strong: 
In the light of this clear northern sky, 

When Polaris looks down on the snow, 
While the Bear and the Lion are high. 

And Orion and Sirius are low, 

There's a ring in the skater's swift steel 

And an impulse of joy in the air 
That only the North can reveal 

To the spirit long burdened with care: 
With the manifold chime of sweet bells 

And the rhythmical motion of sleighs, 
What a sea of wild melody swells. 

While the Winter his jewels displays ! 



Song of the Wiiiter Carnival 153 

Here the sons of proud Albion rejoice 

Hand in hand with the children of France, 
And the harp of old Erin gives voice 

To the hymn of a new world's advance: 
Here, Scotia, dear Scotia, to thee 

Thy children lift voices of song, 
And the Indian, still dauntless and free, 

Brings the soul of the wood to the throng. 

Here the cross of St. George and the Stars 
Of the Union of States are unfurled 

Side by side, to the anguish of Mars, 
To the peace and the joy of the world : 

Then, ho! for the drive and the meet, 

For the tramp where the red torches blaze, 

For the wonders of river and street, 

. Glad nights and memorial days. 

Give the South oleander and rose, 

Let its palms lift their fronds to the sky! 
Our delights are at flood when it snows 

And the voices of Winter are high: 
Wrapped warm in our woolens and furs, 

We smile at the wrath of the cold. 
As each pulse to activity stirs, 

With our hearts waxing eager and bold. 

The frost king but works for our gain, 

As some magical spirit in dreams, 
Builds highways through forest and plain, 

And bridges with crystal the streams: 
Where the noises of traffic were loud. 

And, in Summer, ships swarmed like a fleet. 
See the swift-flying coursers, the crowd 

With the great river under their feet! 

There are visions of fire in the night 

Winding up through the streets and the woods, 



1 54 Song of the Winter Carnival 

And breaking afar on the height 

Of Mount Royal, in wandering floods 

And errant scintillas of flame, — 
Passing in and out under the trees, 

Inconstant as phantoms of fame, 
Or lights on the populous seas. 

Down the avenues gay cavalcades 

Are moving to music's glad notes; 
The flags and the drums, the cockades. 

The blare from the wide brazen throats 
Bid the spirit of Canada soar 

Till the people are wild in their joy. 
And the heart of the gray-beard once more 

Leaps up like the heart of a boy. 

What splendor the cold and the mist, 

With the genius of man and his toil. 
In spite of all powers that resist, 

Have wrought from the Winter's wide spoill 
These crystalline turrets and walls. 

That glow with electrical light. 
Were once as the shower when it falls 

Or the dew which distills in the night. 

Though to mist all their strength shall return, 

Yet to-day they stand perfect and fair, 
And at night they shall sparkle and burn 

Like a fortress of light in the air, 
All besieged and defended by fire, 

While the thousands are shouting the fame 
Of Nature's warm heart of desire 

Prisoned cold in a temple of flame. 

Youth and beauty in mimic array. 

Gay Knights who are guileless as bold, 

And Queens who shall bear their mild sway 
Over hearts neither callous nor cold. 



Song- of the Winter Carnival 155 

Glide and flow like sweet words in a rhyme. 
In a world filled with music and light, 

On their skates keeping wonderful time 
To the song-quickened pulses of night. 

Ho! curlers, come "sweep up" the stones 

With a shout and a cry of good will ! 
Swift glide the toboggans from thrones 

Of enjoyment built high on the hill: 
Here are color and glitter and glow, 

Here is warmth in the teeth of the cold, 
And health with her roseate glow 

" More precious than silver and gold." 

Here gather from province and state 

The bravest, the fairest, the best. 
From the opulent cities that wait 

For their ships by the sea, from the West, 
Where the lake and the plain and the sky 

And the world-feeding people behold 
The v^ondering nations draw nigh 

While this new world is nurt'ring the old. 

Brave Winter, thy terrors are naught 

To the souls of the hardy and free: 
Thou shalt live in our tenderest thought, 

For Canadians do honor to thee; 
Thou foe to effeminate ease, 

To the softness that rots and destroys, 
And the blight of infectious disease, 

We celebrate thee and thy joys! 

For our God has appointed this land 

Of plenty and peace for our own, 
And its treasures and pleasures His hand 

With bountiful largess has sown: 
We thank Him for mountains and streams, 

We thank Him for valleys and plains. 



156 Song- of the Winter Carnival 

For lakes that are lovelier than dreams, 
For pastures, for herds and for grains : 

We thank Him for wealth in the mine, 

For wealth in the forest and field, 
For the harvests we glean from the brine, 

And the fruits that the provinces yield; 
We thank Him for Winter and snow, 

Fair women and storm-nurtured men; 
And for freedom that blesses us so, 

We thank Him again and again. 

Then hurrah ! for the carnival time, 

For the triumphs of friendship's increase, 
For the pleasures unsullied by crime. 

For the tourneys and conquests of peace ! 
Let the eagle and lion be one 

In the welcome our people extend. 
And their banners that glint in the sun, 

Float ever for neighbor and friend! 



MEMORIAL VERSES 



INDIANA'S DEAD 

Oh! sing the funeral roundelay, 

Let warmest tears be shed; 
And rear the mighty monuments 

For Indiana's dead. 

On many a field of victory 

They slumber in their gore; 
They rest beneath the shining sands 

On ocean's sounding shore. 

Where frown Virginia's mountain chains. 

By Rappahannock's side, 
Upon the heights of Maryland, 

Her gallant sons have died. 

The broken woods of Tennessee 
Are hallowed by their blood; 

It consecrates Missouri's plains 
And Mississippi's flood. 

Kentucky's " dark and bloody ground " 

Is furrowed by their graves; 
They sleep in Alabama's soil. 

By Pamlico's dark waves. 

And Mississippi's poison swamps, 

Arkansas river ways. 
And Pennsylvania's pleasant towns, 

Attest her heroes' praise. 

They saw them in the ranks of war, 

OI memory dark with woe! 
They saw them yield to death who ne'er 

Had yielded to the foe. 

159 



i6o Indiana's Dead 

Then weave the chaplets fair and well 

To grace each noble name, 
That grateful Indiana writes 

Upon her scroll of fame. 

Her sons have led the battle's van, 

Where many fought and fell. 
With all th' immortal Gracchi's zeal, 

The hero faith of Tell ; 

And from their fields of glory looked 

Their last upon the skies. 
And calmly met the honored death 

The fallen hero dies. 

And in the dreary doubt and gloom, 
The sick ward's tainted breath, 

Have thousands met the harder fate. 
The slow consuming death; 

The weary torture day by day. 

The fever and the pain. 
The yearnings ever at the heart, 

The pressure on the brain ; 

The longing for the gentle voice. 

The old remembered song. 
And all the dear delights of home 

That memory treasures long. 

Oh! Indiana's noble dead. 

With fadeless wreaths encrowned. 

Shall bless the places where they fell 
And make them freedom's ground. 

Then twine their praise with freedom's song. 
Their names with freedom's name. 

And make each heart a monument 
Of all their deathless fame. 



LINCOLN 

Indianapolis, April 30, A, D. 1865 

The voice is hushed, the heart is still, 

No hght is in the earnest eye 
That lately looked on war's wide ill 

And wept where fallen heroes lie. 

We kindle brightly to thy praise, 
We melt in sorrow at thy bier, 

And wonder, in the boundless days, 
When God shall every truth insphere 

In worlds all wisdom, all delight. 

What crowns thy spirit brow shall wear. 

When, past the terror and the night, 
Thou soarest into morning there. 

O choral lips of love and song! — 
The world's harmonic multitude 

That through the ages dim and long. 
Have prophesied the coming good, — 

Philosopher and saint and seer. 

Of every age and race and clime, — 

Behold, the promised days are near. 
Auroral on the hills of time. 

We read the blessed morrow's sign, 
That comes to hallow every place, 

In every feature, every line 

Of that upturned and calmest face. 
161 



1 62 Sumner 

From this dear sacrifice we learn 

The future's full reality, 
How freedom's flame shall mount and burn 

Above the tomb of slavery. 

How age on age shall pile its weight; 

Yet through the twilight dim and far, 
Among the wise and good and great, 

Shall Lincoln shine, a morning star. 

The useless lash, the broken chain, 

Black swarms of traflic turned to men, 

War fruiting with eternal gain, 
That ripens into peace again; 

These glorify the places where 

Thy paths have been, O true and brave! 
And these inspire the prairie air 

To sing its rest above thy grave. 

Rest! patriot, inartyr, saviour, friend. 
Defender of the poor and weak ! 

Thy glory shall not have an end 
While history has a voice to speak. 



SUMNER 

Be silent, speech, and hushed the noise of drums; 

No idle tumult adds to his renown. 
No wild acclaim, as when some hero comes 

To meet the unstable homage of the town, 
Can give a lustre to that noble name. 
Now brightest on the scroll of civic fame. 

Hang but one broken fetter on his urn, 

Let one black mother only bring her young. 
And while the past shall on her soul return, 



Garfield 152 

But teach her child to lisp with faltering tongue 
The name of him, the apostle,— him who gave 
His life to freedom and the suffering slave. 

We cannot honor him, the time is past. 

He honored our humanity, he wrought 
A work so noble, reared a tower so vast 

Of civic truth and never-dying thought, 
The age should write in granite where he lies, 
"As Aristides just, as Solon wise." 



GARFIELD 

In vain were our prayers and tears, 

A.nd our struggling hopes in vain; 
He is dead in the midst of his years. 
And the nation bows in tears, 
And weepeth above her slain. 

He is dead, the tenderly brave. 

The humble, yet wisely great; 
He goeth down to the grave. 
And over the dust of the brave 
Boweth, in tears, the State. 

He is dead, in the flower of his fame. 
In the wealth of his boundless love; 
He is dead, but his deathless name. 
And the flower of his generous fame 
Shall live while the ages move. 

O, gray-haired mother! Your grief 
Is shared by millions who wait 

By the bier of their stricken chief, 

And ponder in silent grief 
On the future of the State. 



164 Garfield 

O, faithful and patient wife! 

What word can the people speak, 
To comfort thy shadowed life? 
O, patient and faithful wife ! 

Thou art strong, but we are weak. 

Men may tremble and break 

Like oaks in the tempest's path. 
But the wife, for her darling's sake, 
Stands firm, and will not break 
In the rush of sorrow's wrath. 

"God reigns and the nation lives." 
And the life of our fallen chief 

A halo of glory gives 

To the fame of the land that lives 

Though stricken and filled with grief. 

" God reigns!" and the nations move 
To the light of a broader day ; 
To the music of infinite love 
The tribes and the nations move. 
Though error may bar the way 

And the murderer's hand of hate 

Strike down the truest and best: 
Still forward moveth the State, 
And love grows stronger than hate 
As the days go down the west. 

The seasons shall bloom and fade, 
And the silent stars look down 

On the spot where his dust is laid 

For ages, nor yet shall fade 
One color of his renown. 

Nor granite nor brass shall hold 
So strongly in their embrace 
The story his life has told, 



Morton 165 

As the souls of men shall hold 
Forever its matchless grace. 

Lover of freedom and man, 

Child of the people vs^as he: 
Leader in truth's bright van, 
Lover of freedom and man, 

'Tis the people who weep for thee ! 



MORTON 

Look on this statue, standing dark and bold 

And gazing Southward with a dauntless eye, 
And feel once more the presence that controlled 

The broods of faction wed to treason's lie. 
Trod them beneath his feet and led the van* 

Where stricken freedom's eagles soared and 
where 
The bayonet upheld the rights of man, 

And war's dread echoes drowned the voice of 
prayer. 

And this is Morton ! History writes his name 

In burning letters on her sacred scroll; 
Young men reflect with wonder on his fame. 

And older men, who knew him soul to soul, 
Almost forget he had his loves and hates. 

His strong ambitions, little joys and griefs, 
Battled, as other men, with adverse fates 

And nursed his inner world of sweet beliefs. 

Who, gazing on a mountain's lofty brow. 

High-towering in the sunlight, cares to mark 

♦Governor Morton, though not a military leader, followed the 
Indiana soldiers to the front, filled them with his own enthusiasm, 
and cared for their wants so persistently that he, la fact, became their 
leader. 



1 66 Decoration Ode 

The flowering cacti on its sides, or how 

Its front is ploughed with ravines deep and 
dark; 

Or hears the birds that warble sweet and low 
Where osiers bloom and happy brooklets run? 

Men seek not these, they only care to know 
This is a mountain, on its head the sun. 

The world knew Morton when his nerves w^ere 
steel 

And tense and straitened in his country's need, 
When all his cares were for the common weal 

And he was bold in thought and quick in deed,— 
So history paints him, brave and strong and true 

And tow'ring sunward, born to high command. 
With Cromwell's zeal, with Caesar's strength to do 

And Lincoln's love for home and native land. 

Let him who criticises, carps and scolds, 

And blames the mountain that 'tis not a plain, 
Go hence and grumble! History's genius holds 

Our Morton's impress sacred ; Hate is vain 
To change its features; love as vainly cries 

That "he was generous, loyal, kind of heart." 
This ruler of men, this man of high emprise, 

Has now become of History's self a part. 



DECORATION ODE 

Brave defenders of our Union, 

Lovers of our native land. 
Here once more in sweet communion 

At your honored graves we stand. 
Freedom's banner waving o'er us. 

Freedom's fire in every breast. 
While we join the sacred chorus. 

Memory sings above your rest. 



Ai Mi. McGregor 167 

Ye, who died to save the nation, — 

Make it Freedom's home for aye, 
Unto you this decoration, 

Flowers and wreaths we bring to-day. 
Oh, may North and South united 

Banish hatred, doubt and strife, 
And, with faith in union pHghted 

Triumph in the war of life! 

Unto Thee, the Heavenly Giver, 

We devoutly, humbly pray 
Thou wilt save the land forever 

From the tyrant's blighting sway; 
Take our people in Thy keeping, 

Guard from luxury, vice and crime; 
Make us purer, make us worthy 

Of this choicest fruit of time. 

Choicest fruit of all the ages, 

Liberty and law and peace; 
Let the wisdom of the sages 

In the people's will increase. 
Make us purer, make us worthy; 

Like these heroes let us be 
Consecrated, dedicated 

Evermore to liberty. 



AT MT. McGregor 

The man who lies dead at McGregor 

Was great where the greatest were weak ; 

Where the great were imperious and haughty, 
Was modest and childlike and meek. 

" And what shall we write to his glory,— .- 
What monuments build to his fame?" 



1 68 L on g fellow 

Keep silence! He wrote his own story; 
'Tis signed with his own deathless name. 

He obeyed, he commanded, he conquered, 
Saved the Union, gave freedom increase ; 

Saw the world doing homage before him, 
And said to the world, "Be at peace!" 

Then let us have peace for his ashes, — 
The Nation's wide empire their urn, — 

For his is a fame that surpasses 
The power of our time to discern. 

All great things are seen from a distance. 
Or seen but in parts, at the best ; 

Our leader is safe for the future. 

The present bequeathes him its rest. 



LONGFELLOW 

They say that Longfellow is dead, 
That his form lieth low in the clay ; 

That his vision prophetic has fled 

From the light and the gladness of day. 

But they who speak thus must be wrong. 
For just now I was with him in Spain, 

And heard the improviso's song. 

And the muleteer's mountain refrain. 

Then we wandered through Europe once more, 
And saw it with eyes that were young; 

His eyes that looked into all lore 
And knew every classical tongue. 



L ongfellozv 1 69 

At Nuremburg's haunted old town 

We revelled with Durer in art, 
And quaffed at the beverage so brown, 

That warmed Sach's musical heart. 

And the Rhine that we wandered beside 
Is a stream that no mortals have known 

Except those rare spirits that bide 
In poesy's magical zone. 

There Goethe and Schiller sang loud. 

Philosophy, Germany, art, 
And Muller's melodious crowd 

Sang low to the love-burdened heart. 

Then, dropping each hindrance of time, 
And pluming the Spirit's wide wings, 

We neared the great summit sublime, 

Where Sandalphon, the prayer-angel, sings. 

Now turned with The Angels to bless 
The homes and the hearthstones of men, 

Repeating, with rhythmical stress 
The Psalm of Life over again. 

Love, beautiful, deathless, divine, 

By the dark waves of Minas we met. 

Where the winds taught the hemlock and pine 
Songs of longing and feighs of regret. 

But Evangeline faded too soon. 

Like a star on the brink of the morn. 

Like a rose in the fullness of June, 
Like a solo far wound from the horn. 

Then how sweet were The Voices of Night, 
When The Wind o'er the Chimney was high ! 

And The Flowers were all breathing delight. 
As The Footsteps of Angels drew nigh. 



170 Paul Hamilton Hayne 

Strains of love and of longing arose — 

It was Sweet Chibiabas in Song; 
We heard the wild chant to its close, 

Then danced with fierce Kwasind, the strong; 

And all through the glad summer day 

The gentle Dakota spake low 
To her chief, as he led the long way, — 

" My husband, with you will I go." 

John Alden, the faithful and true. 

Miles Standish, rough, generous and bold, 

And the tales that the travelers knew, 

And the priests with their legend of gold ; 

All charmed us away from our pain, 
Singing paradise rather than wrath, 

Till we turned us to hang up the crane 
And gather the Sweet Aftermath, 

What! Longfellow dead, did you say? 

Do we cherish and love him in vain? 
You are wrong, for I know that this day 

Thousands walk with the poet in Spain. 



PAUL HAMILTON HAYNE 

Oh, weep for him, ye ever moaning pines! 

Ye green palmettoes by the summer sea. 
Bend low your heads for him who low reclines! 

He loved you well; his soul to melody 
Was stirred forever by the south wind's play, 
The ocean's voice, the mock-bird's checkered lay. 

Weep for the poet! When the poet dies 

There be some souls that, through the noisy 
years, 



Paul Hamilton Hayne 171 

Heard far and heeded, and did not despise 

His voice of gladness, half suppressed by tears, 
Who pause and query : " Wherefore toil and sow ? 
There is no sunshine; how shall harvests grow?" 

Sunshine and music are the poet's dower; 

He sings, and lo! the land is wed to fame: 
It may have wealth and excellence and power. 

But o'er them all men write the poet's name; 
'Tis Burns's land or Schiller's clime or Hayne's: 
O'er every ruler's right the poet reigns. 

Now silent are the notes that trembled sweet 
As thrushes warbling in the western woods. 

Or murmurs where ecstatic waters meet 
To join in gladness their related floods. 

Men cry, " Farewell!" and linger and bewail: 

The beckoning future whispers softly, " Hail!" 

Nor chivalry, nor knightly deed shall wake 

For thee, O Sun-kissed South! the world's 
acclaim, 

As his glad notes that trembled for thy sake; 
For he who bore Carolina's dearest name 

Could touch the wondrous heart of man, and move 

Its chords to song, its every pulse to love. 

The man is dead ; the bard shall never die ; 

Though clay lie cold and eloquent voice be 
stilled. 
The poet lingers; wood and field and sky 

And the far spaces by his soul are filled. 
For him all times and seasons shall remain, 
And thy best name, O South! shall still be Hayne. 



SONNETS 



W. B. V. 



Oh, mountain monarchs of the mighty west! 

Cradle him gently, lying at your feet; 
Fold him, O nature! softly to thy breast, 
And strew thy daisies o'er his dreamless rest! 

No more for him the murmurs of the street. 

Nor shout of mountain waters as they meet. 
Nor songs that echo when the wine is best 

From life's young vintage; but the blessed calm 
That broods forever o'er the poet's tomb, 
Warm with the fragrance of immortal bloom, 

And breathes through all the year a happy 
Psalm* 
A Psalm of thanks that poet souls are given 
To bless the earth and sing the joys of heaven. 



M. I>OUISA CHITWOOD. 

For her who died so young and wondrous fair — 

A female Keats — some Shelley should arise, 
To deck her tomb and crown her golden hair 

With wreaths as lovely as her own brown eyes. 
Weeping in song, with bowed, melodious head, 
As he who wept for Adonais dead. 
Fair was her morn, hope-tinged with golden red ; 
Its promise full, its joys before her spread, 
Broad as the world. How soon, alas ! they fled, 
And she, whose soul to music's soul was wed, 
Lay spotless, still and beautiful, but dead. 

172 



M. J. W. 173 

And yet not dead; the works her hands had 

wrought 
Preserve her sweetly to the world of thought, 
And give their glory to her narrow bed. 



ON SEEING SOME OLD LETTERS FROM MRS. HETTIE 
ATHON MORRISON. 

Here lie her letters, fresh as yesterday. 

Full of sweet flat'ry for my faulty rhymes; 
Here wit and pathos, interchanging, play 

Like praise and gladness in the Sabbath chimes; 
And though I never saw her, never knew 

The patient face that suffering limned with care, 
Still, budding rose and violet, bursting blue. 

And apple blossoms sweet and lily fair 
Shall long recall her genius; the perfume 

Of that rare life which poets wreathe and sing, 
A thrill of heaven that quickens in the gloom, 

A joy that consecrates the humblest thing. 
O poet soul, divinely fair and young, 
Thou singest now with never-wearying tongue. 



M.J. W. 

AT DAWN, FEB. 25, 1865 

And is she dead, the ever hopeful one? 
The loving life that seemed but just begun. 
So quickly past, and all its guerdons won ? 

And have we watched her feet, as, day by day, 
From childhood's sinless hours of sport and play, 
To womanhood's more elevated way. 



174 ^'^- 7- ^' 

She trod, with firm and ever new delight, 
Along the paths of knowledge, gaining might 
To wield in future battles for the right, 

Alone to see them tremble, pause and fail 
On the glad hills, and turn to walk the vale 
Where night and gloom, decay and grief prevail ? 

The hopes we cherished for her future years 
Are gone forever; through our falling tears 
All but the last and brightest disappears. 

The last and brightest! in our doubt and gloom 
It throws to heaven the beauty of its bloom. 
And drowns the death-smell under its perfume. 

That blessed hope that teaches, in our pain, 
That never noble life was lived in vain, 
And even death dispenses greatest gain. 

Her feet no more enclogged by earthly clay, 
Mount upward now, in their celestial way. 
Swift as the young lark soars to meet the day. 

Upward forever on those hills of light, 
Where love's effulgence banishes the night. 
And every step reveals some new delight; 

Where knowledge cometh not through toil or 

pain. 
But sweetly falleth like the summer rain. 
And fills the spirit with a boundless gain; 

A gain expanding through eternal years, 
While, to its never-ebbing flow, inheres 
The peace and wisdom of diviner spheres; 

There faith establishes her paths, and there 
Love looketh with her eye of gentle care, 



The Children 1 75 

And breathes through Christ, the merciful, a 
prayer; 

When Hfe shall pause and drop the numbering 

glass. 
And death pronounce the midnight's solemn mass, 
Bidding our good or evil forward pass, 

That we may enter, with no selfish dread, 

The silent army of the happy dead. 

To follow where her morning walk has led. 



THE CHILDREN 

The many voices of the noisy day 

Can never hush the echoes of our grief, 
Nor little pleasures, vanishing and brief, 
Nor formal strength of any cold belief. 

For sorrow hath above them all her way. 

But even sorrow bears a gentle heart ; 

Subdued and pensive in our thought she dwells, 
Assuages mirth and boisterous joy dispels. 
And drops into the Spirit's deepest wells. 

The anchors of her sure prevailing art. 

And often in the hour of joy she comes. 
And with the faces of the children calls 
My soul away from all the festal halls, 
The flickering lights, the rows of painted walls, 

To the sweet country and its sweeter homes. 

The little graves I know are by the wood, 
The children's school is very near at hand. 
And nearer still the little church doth stand; 
A mile away dear father owned some land. 

And there the children grew so fair and good. 



176 The Children 

'Twas in the grove of maples, lovely trees, 
The children chattered at their little plays, 
And sported in their simple country w^ays. 
And hours of love grew into lovely days. 

And so they lived and grevs^ in joyous ease. 

But vv^hen there neared a time of wild despair. 
When death was curdling all the sister's blood, 
She bade me take her gently as I could, 
Into the shadows of that pleasant wood, 

Once more, once more, to breathe its balmj^ air. 

Her thankful eyes, her failing, thankful voice, 

I see, I hear; I never shall forget 

The sad-eyed brother w'ith his cheeks so wet; 

Through all the years I see the children yet; 
I see them yet, nor have I any choice. 

But pour my soul in a melodious rain. 
Half tears and half a melancholy rune, 
A roundelay for those who died so soon, 
A slender thread of song in saddest tune, 

A rill of music from a fount of pain. 

They could not dwell apart, for flowed the tide 
Of their sweet lives, as waters in one rill: 
The sister died, the brother smiling still 
Passed on, his little mission to fulfill, 

A few short days, then rested at her side. 

Where are the children? in what pleasant dawns 
Do they arise to hear the morning bird. 
To see the glittering dew drops lightly stirred 
On pendant sprays, to call the bleating herd 

From their green breakfast on the emerald lawns? 

Or, when the sun goes down at shut of day. 
To watch the wonder of the painted mist, — 



The Children 177 

Now waves of gold, now domes of amethyst, 
Now bowers of rest where angels might keep 
tryst. 
And shout with joy to see the bright array ? 

Perhaps all seasons where the children roam 
In their ethereal life, are times of praise, 
And they, forgetful of our little days, 
Move on and on in ever widening ways 

Of joy and bliss in their celestial home. 

They are not out of God, they cannot be 

Dissevered wholly from us, though they tread 
In unknown paths ; but yet we know them dead ; 
Their forms are dust, their little lusters fled. 

They are but ashes, ashes ! what are we ? 

What! they but ashes! Do we vainly trust, 
That these poor bodies which so soon decay 
Are but the caskets, wrought of finest clay, 
In which we hide each through his little day, 

Then soar away and let them go to dust ? 

I cannot think of death as aught but change ; 
The eggs must break to let young eagles out, 
The acorns burst before the oaks can sprout 
And the worn body sink in gloom and doubt, 

To give the spirit free to widest range. 

The years we live are but a passing breath, 
But one poor quaver in an endless song, 
A ripple, where a million oceans throng; 
And he who tarries longest stays not long 

From the unknown results that follow death. 

Whatever those results may be, we trust 

That nothing harms the children, nothing ill 
Befalls them on their journeys, love's sweet will 



178 Ai My Father* s Grave 

Is ever more the law that guides them; still 
We cannot choose but weep above their dust. 

Somewhere in this wide universe they dwell ; 
Somewhere they wander onward, as of old. 
From joy to joy in cycles manifold 
As are the worlds on night's blue chart un- 
rolled ; 

I know not where; God knows, and all is well. 



AT MY FATHER'S GRAVE 

Here Is the grave! 

My father is not here; 
The cherished life he gave 

Did only disappear 
From our sad eyes that watched, as in a dream, 
What time he shivered in the icy stream. 
Then with a burst of joy, remembered evermore, 
Stepped from the waters to the heavenly shore. 

Here is the grave! 

About it are the trees; 
Above their branches wave; 

The summer symphonies 
Float o'er this lovely, hallowed spot where he, 
When mother died, delighted much to be, 
For here she rests, here at her head there stand 
Cedar and willow, planted by his hand. 

Here is the grave! 

And here our other dead. 
When storms do wildly rave 

Above each lowly head 
The sleepers reck not, but when robin sings, 
And all the wood birds come, on fleetest wings, 



To F. R. 179 

I can but deem their spirits linger here 
And bathe in this delightful atmosphere. 

Here is the grave! 

His ashes here repose. 
Love boundless, rich to save; 

Forgiveness for his foes; 
The love he trusted, the forgiveness gave, 
And, to no bitter thought in death a slave, 
He cast his clay behind him with a smile; 
And thus he passed, a soul that knew no guile. 



TO F. R. 



ON THE DEATH OF HIS MOTHER 

There is no comfort in an idle word 

When sorrow touches all the strings of life, 

And voiceless sadness, with a step unheard, 

Glides through the halls and stills the noise of 
strife. 

There is no music in the flow of song 
To ears that covet silence, or that ache 

For words whose echoes have been memories long, 
Renewed forever for a dear one's sake. 

And yet a friend may come, without offense, 
And offer tribute to a mother's worth ; 

For well he knows the sorrow, the intense 
Deep anguish of a child when the cold earth 

Falls on a mother's coffin, and he feels 

That light and love and joy are gone away ; 

And no fond dream of future bliss reveals 
To his sad eyes so sweet, so glad a day 



i8o To F. R. 

As any single day of all the past 

Wherein she cradled him upon her knee, 

Or watched his toddling steps increasing fast 
In strength and purpose, and benignantly 

Gave of her life and toils increasing store 
Of blessings on his head, as years went by, 

Until the heart that gave could give no more. 
The soul that blessed sought blessedness on high. 

Ah me! the sorrow for a mother's death 
No pen can paint, no tender strain reveal; 

Words are but clamor, song an idle breath, 
And filial grief stabs like the dull, cold steel. 

But yet, to him who looks beyond the tomb 
For life's best outcome, there is solace, hope, 

For, as a flower of never-fading bloom, 

A mother's face lights up the future's scope. 

More musical than music's soul the voice. 

The mother voice that fills our sunniest dreams. 

Of that fair land where we shall yet rejoice 
As guileless children by the happy streams. 

O mothers, mothers! we shall come to you. 
And as you gladdened when the anguish past 

And we were born, so shall your joys renew 
When we are with you safely housed at last. 

A mother's love outreacheth time and change, 
It is compassion more compassionate; 

Intense, yet broad as life's divergent range, 
It follows, follows, like a haunting fate. 

No heaven so high it cannot bless us there, 
No hell so deep it dare not tempt to save; 

It will not falter even when despair 

Were happiness, and a delight the grave. 



To F, R, i8i 

The child who knows such love can never know 
Forgetfulness of her who gave it him; 

He may be wrecked on darkest shores of woe, 
Or pain may rack and rend him limb by limb, 

Or sin may blight, or passion burn him dry, 
But through all depths the mother love shall 
hold 

Its stellar glory in his spirit's sky, 

In his soul's rubbish be the coin of gold. 

O mother love, call home, call home to thee 
Thy wandering children, when the day is done. 

And when the lights go out for us, and we 
Lie down to rest, our little courses run. 

Be it in hope that on some future morn. 
Sooner or later, in the sinless lands. 

The souls whose joy was great when we were 
born 
Shall lead us with their dear maternal hands, — 

Their dear maternal hands, where love endures, 
And is requited, where the poet's dream 

Of heaven and happiness no more allures 
And vanishes like shadows on a stream, 

But is the substance of most real things, 
The primal joy of joys that shall increase. 

Sweet as the murmurous stir of angel wings, 
That smooth war's front with messages of peace. 



THE WHITE WATER BAR 

[Read at the annual Bar Picnic, Saturdaj, June 30tb, 1883] 

I RECOGNIZE your able plea 

And make my answer true; 
Though every old authority 
Declare all law and equity 

And precedent with you. 

I fain would join you on the green, 

Where youthful Summer stands 
In woods that rise, the fields between, 
Which Ceres rules — a peaceful queen, — 
And sows with bounteous hands: 

Where wigless lawyer, lawyer meets, 

And ungowned judges walk ; 
Where Friendship scatters myriad sweets 
More precious than the bard's conceits 

Or any learned talk. 

But distance, which " enchantment lends" 

Restrains the eager thought 
Of long-loved scenes and absent friends, 
And so my homeward vision ends, 

A blossom fruiting nought 

But memories fair of other days 

And love that waiting stands 
To pipe your joy in hopeful lays. 
Or fly across the weary ways 

To shake your friendly hands. 

Since Blackstone bade his lyre farewell 
And turned him with a sigh, 

182 



The White Water Bar 183 

To garner up the law and tell 
To ages, that should love him well, 
Its truth and majesty, 

I doubt if any land has shown 

A bar with higher aims 
Than this White Water vale has known, 
Or one whose history has been strown 

With more deserving names. 

Deserving names! a noble throng! 

Yet memory holds but few 
Of all, to shrine in slender song: 
No matter! Each shall linger long 

In loyal souls and true. 

Here, O. H. Smith, Websterian, strong, 

And sprightly Rariden, 
Quick witted, brilliant, led the throng 
Of younger men, who moved along 

The legal foot-paths then. 

Here, Blackstone of the early, bar, 

Safe Newman built his fame, 
And Parker shone a splendid star, 
And Cale. Smith's silvery tongue afar 

Wafted the Hoosier name. 

Here, too, the mind of Perkins grew 

Judicial, earnest, broad; 
And Elliott, patient, honest, true, 
Lived out his life, and rose from view, 

A just Judge to his God. 

And Nimrod Johnson, poet soul, 

Whose life was like a lute, 
Attuned to tender thought's control, 
Here early won his aureole, 

And here grew cold and mute. 



184 The White Water Bar 

And here McCarty, Borden, Reed, 

Farquhar and Holland rose; 
Each measured knowledge by his deed. 
And won the earnest lawyer's meed, 
And gained the sure repose. 

Here Leonard grew of hero mold, 
To die in Freedom's Cause; 

And Johnson's stately years were told ; 

And Polk knew honor's touch of gold; 
And Woodward won applause. 

Be kindly thought a moment staid 
Where safe our neighbor's keep 
The spots where Hackleman is laid, 
Where Robinson's low bed is made, 
And Sleeth and Sexton sleep. 

And Walter March, above whose clay 

The clods are broken yet, 
Learned, gifted, open as the day. 
And simple as a child at play! 

Who shall his fame forget? 

'Twas here that patriot giant grew. 

Who in the stormy days 
Held firm the ship while tempests blew. 
Till all the watchful nations knew 

Triumphant Morton's praise. 

We knew his steps that others see 
Through fame's empurpled view; 

The brave, strong man, who dared to be 

A leader then; his memory 
To us is ever new ! 

But think not all the wise are dead 
This lovely vale can claim; 



The White Water Bar 185 

For yet full many a stately head 
Survives w^here honor's light is shed, 
To share a generous fame. 

Round gray-haired Perry, Yaryan, Test, 

What crowding memories throng! 
They knew White Water as « The West," 
When lawyers were in buckskin dressed 
And circuit rides were long. 

They knew when all the country round 
Came up through storm and cold, 

To hear the Judge's charge profound, 

And listen to the eloquent sound 
The pleader made of old. 

They knew when from Ohio's side 

To swampy Kankakee, 
The lawyer would on horseback ride, 
And never dream of wounded pride — 

In quest of cause and fee. 

But reminiscence often tires 

When hope is full and strong; 
The young man struggles and aspires, 
And thus are kept alive the fires 

Of Law as well as song. 

White Water bears an honored name. 

No time nor change can mar; 
Be yours to magnify its fame. 
Increase its glory, add no shame, 

But many a growing star. 

And now, lest you should file complaint. 

Demur ^ or pray divorce^ 
I think this echo, far and faint. 
Had best withdraw its pleadings quaint. 

And let law have its course. 

Sherbrooke, June 23, 1883 



J. T. E. 

A JUST JUDGE 
[Obit— Feb. 12, 1876] 

Not his to sound the Attic shell 

Nor touch the lyre attuned to please 
The souls of nations yet to be ; 

Not his immortal Tully's spell 
Of witching eloquence that rose 

Above all minor melodies; 
Nor his the lurid fame that glows 

O'er war's red field of agonies. 

But deep within his soul there lay 

The wealth that passeth every praise, 
The glow from old Astrean days, 

The light that fadeth not away. 

To him was justice all divine, 

A blind, sweet goddess living still 
Untrammeled by the venal will 

That ever works a sure decline. 

Great in his native strength of thought 
In calm pursuance of an end, 
In truth to client, love to friend, 

Such life is never lived for naught. 

We weaker men imagine more 

And weave more garlands 'round the truth; 

He saw her naked in his youth 
And loved her thus forever more. 

i86 



Billy At k ISO f I 187 

His wrath was kindled when he saw 
The forms of fraud and wrong arise, 
And march victorious in disguise 

Of specious plea, or wicked law. 

To him the law was justice's shield, 

And that which cherished wrong or hate, 
In jurist's dictum, code of state, 

But so much mildew on its field. 

But wherefore speak his worth in song? 

For song is idle and shall pass. 

Like flying shadows in a glass. 
While truth and honor tarry long. 

Aye! truth and honor tarry late, 
And ever welcome guests are they, 
Renewing noble names for aye. 

With the swift finger-touch of fate. 

A.nd they shall still his worth commend. 
Who bears amid the throng no blame. 
Where many bless his spotless name 

As husband, father, neighbor, friend. 



BILLY ATKISON 

And so you say that Billy's dead. 

And that his hand no more shall make 

The tempting pie, the jDudding brown, 
The queenly wedding cake. 

No more his sleek, black face shall shine 
In grateful pleasure, when with praise 

Of stew or roast, strong men combine 
The sable cook's deft ways. 



iSS My Mother 

Ah ! Billy, tho' your face was dark, 

Your heart was warm, your friendship true, 

And those be worthy tears that fall 
In earnest grief for you. 

And now whene'er at cheerful board, 
The oyster fry, the savory stew. 

Shall fill our senses with delight. 
We'll think, old friend, of you. 

And tho' the jest and laugh go round 
As they were wont to do before. 

The mirth will be less rude and loud 
Because you are no more. 

And we shall ponder on the soul 

That lit with warmth your kindly face, 

And wonder where it wanders free 
In what untrodden space. 

And then the silent prayer will rise 
To him who doeth all things best, 

" Wherever Billy is to-day, 
God give him peaceful rest." 



MY MOTHER 

O, mother! in that blessed clime, 
Where thou hast found a peaceful rest. 
Do ever thoughts and loves of time 
Return into thy gentle breast? 

And does thy happy spirit see, 
Or cast one loving thought to me? 

O mother! I have wander'd far 

From all my childhood's dear delights; 

Grown weary of life's sick'ning war, 



As a Sheaf Fully Rife 189 

And every pleasure that invites, 

I bow my aching head and w^eep, 
Dear mother, vi^here thy ashes sleep. 

When shall I share this rest with thee ? 

When shall I be as low as thou. 

And waken in the morn to see 

The crown of glory on thy brow? 
O mother still remember me, 
Till I again rejoice with thee. 



AS A SHEAF FULLY RIPE 

A. W., JULY 6, 1878 

As A sheaf that is fully ripened, the Reaper 
Gathered the good man home to his rest, 
And the pallid form of the dreamless sleeper 
Lieth low in the dear Earth's breast: 
In the breast of the Earth, the fond old mother 
That turneth our clay to the sweetest things. 
To flowers that bloom and vines that smother. 
And grains and grasses and murmuring wings'; 

The rose on the cheek of the budding maiden. 
The splendor that falls on the sun-set sky. 
The lips that are sweet with love-dews laden, 
And all beautiful forms that wander by. 

Ah, well! but the man himself! — who guesses 

In what far realms, what spiritual places 

He wanders on in a light that blesses 

His vision clear with the dear old faces 

That shone about his path in the mornino-, 

When life was sweet as a pictured psalm*^ 

And his soul was unchilled by the solemn warning 

We read in death's imperious calm ? 



190 I^aircst JFlozvers of Chivalry 

A sheaf fully ripened, not scorched nor blighted, 

Its fruitage as perfect and pure as his life 

That bore the sweet faith, that all wrongs shall be 

righted 
And the Earth cease, at last, to be crimsoned by 

strife; 
A sheaf fully ripened, and garnered in gladness 
That shouteth all praise to life's labor well done. 
No touch on his face of death's premature sadness; 
A sheaf fully ripened, his victories were won. 



FAIREST FLOWERS OF CHIVALRY 

[for decoration day] 

Raise again the patriot song, 
Sound the martial notes anew, 
Though our heroes slumber long 
And the grass is cool with dew 

Where they bivouac silently; 
While the never-sleeping stars, 
Great Arcturus and red Mars, 

Guard their rest so patiently. 

Sound the bugle, roll the drum. 
They have slejDt a score of years — 
Let the happy children come 
Strewing flowers instead of tears; 

In the sunshine, pleasantly. 
Scattering leaf and bud and bloom 
On each consecrated tomb 

Where they lie contentedly. 

Those who wish to, may forget 
All their wondrous sacrifice, 



Fairest Flowers of Chivalry loi 

How they stifled each regret, 
And for freedom paid the price; 

Dying uncomplainingly 
For the Union and the laws 
And the bondman's righteous cause — 

Fairest flowers of chivalry. 

But with us who loved them when 
Stricken Freedom's outcry drew 
Beardless youths and gray-haired men 
Where her menaced eagles flew, 

And their blood flowed like a sea; 
As the gathering years increase. 
Love for them grows with their peace, 

Multiplying endlessly. 

Children, who were yet unborn 
When these soldiers halted last, 
Come, like spirits of the morn, 
When the weary night is past, 

And with youthful sympathy 
Lift your souls in song anew, 
Naming those who died for you 

In the war's wild agony. 

Fear not to disturb their rest; 
These were heroes tried and true, 
Men who died to make bequest 
Of true Liberty to you, 

And to all whose Idt may be 
Cast in this new world of ours, 
Where new States, like opening flowers, 

Gather on the nation's tree. 

These were men who loved us well, 
And your patriot noise and song, 
Should they enter where they dwell, 



192 Fairest Flotvcrs of Chivalry 

With the happy-hearted throng 

Clothed in immortahtv, 
Would but speak to them how well 
Freedom's soul survives the hell 

Born of Treason and Slavery; 

Still survives, forgiving all 
Those who for the error strove, 
And from State to State doth call, 
In the sovereign name of love — 

" Come fair sisters, cheerily, 
Join together hands and hearts; 
In the realm of peaceful arts 

Let your future conquests be." 

" Come ye brave men who obeyed 
Voices of misgoverned States, 
And in war's dread ranks arrayed, 
Battled, like destroying fates. 

For " the lost cause," fearlessly; 
Blend your strength, mature, to-day, 
In the march that moves away 

To the future hopefully ; 

" Where Confederate gray no more 
Contrasts with the Federal blue, 
And the flag that goes before 
Is the one our fathers knew; 

And 'one flag, one destiny,' 
Is the legend that it bears. 
And the people's hopes and prayers 

And strong arms its shield shall be. 

" Happy children of the brave 
Wearers of the gray or blue, 
Lo! these starry banners wave 
With the world's best hope for you! 



Fairest Flowers of Chivalry 193 

Yours the land's prosjoerity 
Blooming from these graves so low ; 
Yours to reap as yours to sow, 

Are these realms perpetually. 

"Bind them, then, with iron thongs. 
Nerve them with the singing wires; 
Make them vocal with the songs 
Sung by steam and red forge fires; 

On the mountains, by the sea, 
Down the valleys fair and wide, 
Make them beauteous as a bride 

Flushed with love's expectancy. 

" And through all and over all, 
Gladdening labor, warming art, 
Blessing cot and stately hall, 
Pulsed by every noble heart. 

Let your mutual love agree 
With your mutual interest ; then 
Shall a prosperous race of men 

Save the Union endlessly." 

Thus in hope we strew the flowers 
Where our patriot dead repose; 
Garlands fresh from budding bowers. 
Lilac fair and queenly rose, 

Speaking love's supremacy ; 
Immortelles of angel white, 
Violets blue as skies at night. 

Heartsease blooming tenderly. 

Thus, with many loving word, 
Eloquent tongues their deeds rehearse; 
Oratory's voice is heard. 
And the feebler trill of verse, 

While the drums pulse mournfully, 



194 A' C. D. 

And the mellow bugles blow 
As they blew so long ago 

When they marched so valiantly. 

Soon these annual rites shall pass, 
And these fragrant blossoms fade; 
But for them shall bloom the grass, 
And the sunlight chase the shade, 

Birds still singing happily, 
Many a day and many a year, 
While the world shall hold them dear, 

Slumbering here victoriously. 



A. C. D. 

Jan. 30TH, 1S79 

The bloom of his manhood 

Has faded away; 
The joy of his morning. 

The strength of his day, 
Ere his evening had fallen, 

Are over for aye. 

And now lowly he lieth 

And sweet is his rest, 
Where the earth, like a mother. 

Holds fast to her breast 
The cold, pallid sleeper 
• Who lieth at rest. 

His labors are ended, 

His story is told! 
But they say that he dwells 

In a heavenly fold, 



A. C. D. 

And sings to the sensitive 
Harpstrings of gold. 

Be it so, yet nought sweeter 
Shall fall from his tongue 

Than the life that he lived 
Ere his dirges were sung, — 

Life of love flowing on 
From a soul ever young. 

And its memory sweetens 
The grief where his home 

Waiteth long for the footsteps 
That never shall come, 

And it rests like the shadow 
Of peace on his tomb. 

Early friend of my childhood. 
This torn myrtle spray 

On thy shrine in affection 
I tenderly lay; 

It will fade, but thy memory 
Shall fade not away. 



'95 



HUMOROUS AND DIALECT 
POEMS 



TO J. M. T. 



POFT AND NOVELIST, ON HIS APPOINTMENT TO THE OFFICE 
OF STATE GEOLOGIST 



O POET ! prone to woods and fishes, 

Whose songs were late of bream and trout, 
And those dear Edens of our wishes 

Where rivers sing and brooklets shout. 
Touched now by low Silurian numbers. 

Wilt henceforth tune a fossil shell 
To wake Cyathus from her slumbers. 

Or move the Soul of Rhynconell? 

Alas! to old Zaphrentian graces 

Must wood-nymphs yield thy many charms, 
And thrush and robin see their places 

Assumed by dim Primordial forms? 
Or upward with the advancing ages, 

Shall Ammon's horn proclaim thy song? 
Whom triolet no more engages 

Shall he to Trilobite belong? 

This plant Pentacrinal shed blossom 

Some fifteen million years ago; 
How warms it now thy poet bosom 

With long Polypean afterglow? 
Dost pant for wild Selachian pleasures 

Where strong Devonian billows roll ? 
Or tunest thou those clinking measures 

That vulgar people christen Coal ? 

199 



200 To y. J/. T, 

O Hippogriff! 'tis sorrow for iis 

To look upon this comic thing! 
Thy poet rides the Plesiosaurus 

Or flies on Pterodactyl's wing; 
Mid groves of ancient Sigillarias 

He'll chant Bellerophon's sinuous rhyme, 
Or praise sweet Ganoid Amblypterus, 

While Labyrinthodonts keep time. 

In mesozoic modulations 

His notes shall find conchiferous range, 
With Bacalitic variations 

And vigorous Squalodontal change; 
Down laughing vales Post-tertiary 

He'll lead the Megatherium bound 
With strings of thyme and sweet rosemary 

While Glyptodons are capering round. 

We Talc to thee on Gneiss descending 

En Trap our Souls with Golden sound, 
And, while thy genius goes Hornblending, 

May Apatite for song be found ! 
However Serpentine thy Traces, 

Lift high the Alabaster brow, 
Beware of saucy Gypsum graces 

And quaff in Quartz thy nectar now ! 

Revere thy ancient muse and greet her, 

If the Gal-ena where thou see. 
Nor Shale thy new found loves defeat her 

Though Tufas muses e'er may be; 
If Faults they have or Dislocations 

Where Dikes of common earthy thought 
Outcrop through many fair Striations, 

Don't Mica Strike, these things are naught! 

In brief, O poet Southern-hearted ! 
Whose soul is full of tropic balms. 



Courtship at Threescore and Ten 201 

We mourn thee not as one departed, 
For, neath thy Carboniferous palms 

We still shall hear thy Shell a-ringing 
Through many a Palceozoic rhyme. 

And, now and then, recall thee, singing, 
To this long afternoon of time. 



COURTSHIP AT THREESCORE AND 
TEN 

HIS LETTER 

Dear Penina, I've been thinking, 

While the sun was sinking low, 
Of the past, and deeply drinking 

From the springs of long ago; 
And, somehow, through mists of sadness. 

One fair form arises still. 
Filling all my soul with gladness. 

Charming me from every ill. 

Looking westward, sat I dreaming 

In the fading light of day, 
Till again I saw the gleaming 

Of a church spire far away, 
And the people, happy-hearted, 

Going through the open door: — 
You, a bride, that day departed 

And my heart was bruised and sore. 

Youth is strong to turn from sorrow, 
" Hope springs ever in the breast," 
And there came a brighter morrow 

Where my soul found peace and rest. 
While my hands toiled for another, 

Fairer than the blush of morn, 



203 Courtship at Threescore and Ten 

When the mist sprites kiss each other 
And the dew is on the corn. 



All is past, and death has only 

Left, of old friends, you and me; 
Ah ! why should we wander lonely, 

Sorrowing by a shoreless sea? 
Age should never chill affection. 

Love survives both time and tide; 
Urge me not some trite objection ; 

Hasten to me ; be my bride. 

Spring shall come with sprouting willows, 
Streams shall thaw and maples bloom, 

And the warm south air in billows 
Flow above the winter's tomb; 

Bluebells swinging, robins singing, 
And the noise of bleating herds 

Call to us, the message bringing, 

" Be ye happy with the birds!" 

HER ANSWER 

Your letter's cum to han, sir, an I'm told 
You've done quite well in gittin lans an gold 
An worldly gear; much better than I thought 
You would when I was young; an when you 

sought 
My han, ef you remember, an I sed 
" I liked you, but my heart belied my head," 
Adden, as best I could, a choken back the tears. 
That " marryin means for all the comin years." 
« You're good," said I, " an stiddy, brave an true; 
But poets can't make ends meet;" an so you 
Stood there a pleadin, with your tearful eyes, 
Till all the world seemed full of grief an sighs; 



Courtship at Threescore and Ten 203 

But this ere level head of mine sed " No!" 

An, though my heart said "Yes!" I bade you go. 

The han that marks the cent'ry's run half roun, 

And snows of fifty winters sifted down 

Since then, an now that same old tinklen tune 

Is strivin to turn December into June, 

An melt the gathered frosts of age an time 

With an old lover's sentermental rhyme. 

Lord bless you, John ! you'd take me for a mummy 

Ef you could see me; yet I ain't no dummy! 

I set an kmt, an think the old times over — 

Old home, old friends, old playmates an old lover, 

They all rise up past nearer things an dearer, 

For back to'rds childhood mem'ry's sky gits 

clearer. 
But greatgran'mothers can't be gals, I reckon. 
No more nor gran'thers beaux, at call an beckon, 
Or last year's leaves, all withered, dry an faded. 
Can rise in woods the frost has ne'er invaded. 
Don't dream, old friend, that winter's ice an 

snows is 
The buddin spring times crocusses an roses, 
Or yaller cowslips, brimmed with golden lafter. 
Can sprout by frozen brooks, or that, hereafter, 
Yourself an me, reversin Nater's fashion. 
Shall live again Youth's trustful love an passion. 

I don't like poetry, can't never like it; 
An ef I had the power I'd up an strike it 
Out of existence, for, 'twas only that 
Made me refuse my early lover pat, 
An turn away dissatisfied an mean ; 
An now it comes again, a paintin green 
Life's brown old stubble, an a callin swallers 
An katydids from out the frozen hollers. 
An bidden age with love go lightly strayen 
Where gout belongs an rheumatiz is playen ; 



204 Courtship at Threescore and Ten 

Picterin old gran'ma as a rosy maiden, 
Treadin, in virgin coyness, youth's fair aidenn, 
An maken bleeve renew, in spite of reason, 
The flowin sap, as in the vernal season. 
In leafless branches, by the storm winds shaken, 
Which all song birds but memory's has forsaken. 

Come, John, an see me, jest to learn how nice 
That poet nater of yourn has fooled you twice. 
We'll talk old times, and how to be forgiven 
For all our sins, an jog along to'rds heaven, 
Nor think nor dream of youthful Cupid's wingin, 
When we should listen for the angels singin. 
An be a moven for'ard, sure an steady, 
A striven an a prayen to be ready 
For layen down each earthly care an burden, 
To meet our youth on t'other side of Jordan. 
The Bible says there ain't no marryin there. 
Nor nothin worl'ly breathes the heavenly air; 
An what would happy angels, good an wise. 
Think an remark, ef, looken from the skies. 
They'd see us weak old fools in marriage given, 
As ef to make our honeymoon in heaven ? 
No, John, we'll soon be as the angels are 
Beyon the shinin realms of sun an star. 
Till there we meet, I shell continer still 
Your bowed an trem'lin friend, 

Pknina Hill. 



VENEZ ENCORE, DOUCE FRAISE ! 

Farewell, darling strawberry ! 

Luscious and sweet, 
We part in great sorrow, 

Yet hoping to meet 
In some balmy future 

When summer is fair 
And the berry-man learneth 

To deal on the square, 

Venez encore^ douce J'raise ! 

We never grow weary 

Of tasting thy lips. 
Darling pet, they are sweeter 

Than nectars Jove sips. 
But we weary, alas ! 

When our money is gone. 
And two berry-man's quarts 

Will but measure out one, 

Venez encore^ douce fi'aisc ! 

Farewell, darling strawberry ! 

Since for thy sake 
The good wife no longer 

Constructs the short-cake ; 
And the deadly ice cream man 

Now fixes his glance 
Where the raspberry joins 

In the season's gay dance, 

Venez e?tcore^ douce f raise! 

Good-bye, da^-ling strawberry! 
Thou 'rt gone like a dream. 

20S 



2o6 Venez Encore^ Douce Fraise 

No more will we drown thee 
In well-watered cream ; 

No more the church lady, 
With pious intent, 

Sell thee for a dime. 

When thou cost her a cent, 

Venez encore,^ douce f raise! 

Farewell, gentle strawberry! 

Now, with a tear. 
The berry-man fixes each box 

For next year! 
He puts up the bottom 

And shaves off the top. 
Then lays it to rest 

In the heart of his shop, 

Venez encore^ douce f raise! 

It was good Isaac Walton 

Who said in his day 
That God, doubtless, could. 

Had He sought for a way, 
Have created a fruit 

More dehghtful than thee, 
"But then, God never did," 

With a smile, added he, 

Venez encore^ douce f raise ! 

And we promise ourselves. 

As we bid thee good-bye, 
That, if we should live. 

Like bold Pat, "till we die," 
We'll keep both our tongues 

And our palates in tune 
For the strawberry chorus 

That glorifies June, 

Venez encore^ douce f raise ! 



To Nellie 207 

When the strawberry stars 

In the heavens of our youth, 
As we look back, appear 

Honeyed globes full of truth. 
We shout with regret 

Looking backward for aye 
And remembering the sweets 

Of each early June day, 

Venez encore,, douce praise! 



TO NELLIE 
(Two Weeks Old) 

Good morning to Nellie ! 

You're welcome, young lady ! 
This country is large 

And there's lots of room in it; 
But life is not long: 

Though when babies begin it 
It seems like an age 

Ere they learn to go walking, 
Leave crying and puling 

For laughing and talking; 
And here, darling Nellie, 

Let uncle remind you. 
There's many a rude blast 

And ill wind that will find you ; 
And many a hard ache. 

Both for heart and for cranium. 
Nor is half the world grows 

Either rose or geranium. 

There are shadows for young folks, 
And sorrows for old ones; 



2o8 To JMellie 

There are fires for the hot folks, 

And frosts for the cold ones, 
But, somehow, I think, 

Though I can't just explain it, 
That life bears a blessing 

For each, could he gain it; 
But few win the guerdon 

Or some never know it 
Till it slips from their hands 

Like success from a poet; 
But still, Nellie dear, 

There are valleys where roses 
Bloom sweet as the west 

When a summer day closes. 
God grant, little niece, 

That your path may lead through them, 
And that all things you do 

May be blest as you do them. 

So here's a warm welcome 

To earth and her mysteries, 
Her mountains and rivers. 

Her rock-written histories, 
Her woods and her fields. 

Cities, gardens and meadows. 
Her bountiful sunshine. 

Her sweet, pensive shadows. 

You'll find, little lassie, 

Some leisure for dollies. 
And things that delight 

Baby girls, ere the follies 
Of fashion come in 

To destroy that illusion 
Of child- world that blesses 

In boundless profusion. 



Whistling Joe 209 

You'll find much to learn, 

And will learn much that better 
No doubt, be unknown. 

For this life, like a letter, 
Will bring you some tidings 

To set your eyes streaming, 
And some that will put them 

To dancing and beaming. 
So Nellie, sweet Nellie, 

Here's a welcome unflagging! 
You're in the world with us. 

And the world is a- wagging. 



"WHISTLING JOE" 

By the border of a woodland. 

In a cabin, rude and low. 
Dwelt a young lad with his mother. 

In the days of long ago: 
And that mother was a widow 

And her daily joy did flow 
From the cheerful, earnest labors 
Of the lad called « Whistling Joe;" 
As he whistled in the morning 

Many a snatch of gleesome tune. 
Or at evening hummed a ditty 
To the old man in the moon, 
Mocking all the merry song birds 

That he heard from bush or tree. 
From the gusty joy of blackbirds 
To the chirp of chickadee. 

" Mother, dear, I am so happy 

That I've strength to toil for you. 

That my spirits will run over, 
And I can't be sad nor blue," 



210 Whistling Joe 

Said the merry little fellow, 

And no doubt his words were true, 
For next moment rose his whistle 
In the tune of *' Bonnets Blue;" 
Then he echoed back the barking 

Of the squirrel on the tree, 
Mocked the rollic of the robin 

And the thrushes' happy glee, 
Set the comic cat-bird laughingr 

At his own mosaic lay, 
At the whistle of the grosbeak 
And the cackle of the jay. 

" Oh, dear widow!" cried the deacon, 

With his face so sad and long, 
"That wild boy of yours, I'm certain, 

Will be up to something wrong; 
So much levity, good woman, 

Shows old Satan's influence strong:" 
But just then the lad came homeward. 
And his mouth was full of song, 
And he sang " The day is over. 

And its memory I bless. 
For I've earned a silver dollar 

And I've bought my ma a dress. 
Which will make her look so comely, 

As she walks to church, I guess. 
That she'll feel once more the sunshine 
Of her girlish happiness." 

Then the widow smiled and answered, 

Very pleasantly and low, 
" Josy loves me, labors for me, 

Soothes my every pain and woe. 
And I've not the heart, good Deacon — 

He enjoys his racket so — 
To forbid the noise and gladness 



Whistling Joe 2 1 1 

Of my dear, big-hearted Joe, 

As he chirrups with the crickets 

At his labor all the day, 
And comes happy homeward singing 

When the dusk is growing gray ; 
And the music of his whistle 

And his voice's merry play, 
Are the sounds that most delight me 

As my evening fades away." 

Growling surlily, the deacon 

Pulled his hat upon his head, 
And rejoined, *' O, wicked woman, 

Be his sins upon thy head!" 
Then he strode away so solemn. 

Looking wise as any owl 
While Joe, toiling in the garden, 
Mocked that melancholy fowl. 
With "tu whit, tu whit, tu whoo! 

I'm the pride of all the wood, 
'Tis but little that I do, 

But I'm goody, goody, good. 
Pretty song birds I devour, 

Little chicks I murder, too, 
I can't bear the cheerful light. 

But I'm wise and good, tu whoo!" 

vSo the days and years ran by them 

And the widow's skies were fair. 
For the sunshine of Joe's nature 

Banished darkness and despair. 
Yet, for all his noise and gladness. 

Not a thoughtless lad was he. 
But he loved his books and pajDers 

And he labored joyfully : 

Singing where the flowers were blooming, 
Whistling loud behind the plow. 



212 Whistling Joe 

Chattering, as the fragrant clover 
He prepared for stack or mow ; 

Never pining, nor regretting 
At his poverty, this boy 

Deftly wrought life's earnest purpose 
To the melody of joy. 

Now that mother knows the silence 

That befalleth all below, 
And her son, no longer answering 

To the name of " Whistling Joe," 
Gathers sons and daughters round him 

And proclaims the rule of joy, 
Saying to each smiling daughter 
And broad-shouldered, lusty boy, 
" Love and happiness will flourish 
And fair virtue bud and bloom. 
Better in the air of gladness 

Than in atmospheres of gloom : 
Hatred, selfishness and passion 

Die when song begins to flow. 
And the joy that lightens burdens 
In the thankful heart will grow. 



« Better whistle at your labor 

Than to nourish sordid schemes ; 
Better wed your thoughts to music 

Than to mope through gloomy dreams ; 
Better worship God in gladness 
As you ply your humble toil, 
Than split hairs with theologians 
Or dig pitfalls in the soil 

For a thoughtless brother's downfall ; 

Better sinless fancy's play 
Than the grim ascetic's dogmas ; 
Better act than merely pray." 



The Vacation 213 

Then the old man whistles lightly 

As he used to long ago, 
And his happy children bless him, 

Singing " Long live Whistling Joe." 



THE VACATION 

He went on a summer vacation. 

The first one he ever had known ; 
He was sixty, had worked like the nation. 

Owned merchandise, cattle and corn. 
His farms were as broad as a prairie, 

His bank account long as a string; 
His fortune, that never did vary, 

Was always the right sort of thing. 

He could grub, he could plow, he could "figger,' 

He could " boss " in a bank or a shop; 
In short he "could work like a nigger" 

At " bizness " or " maken a crop;" 
But this bus'ness of taking vacation 

It puzzled and won"ied him so, 
It quickened each pulse's vibration 

And set his old face in a glow. 

He went for four weeks to Lake Gumbo, 

Where fisherman's candor was born. 
Where black bass are bigger than Jumbo, 

And wild deer are thick in the corn ; 
Where the turkeys are tame as mosquitoes, 

And woodcock are plentier than snipe 
And easier to gather than vetoes 

When blind widows' pensions are ripe. 

He bought him a brand-new breech-loader, 

He purchased a rod and a reel, 
A boat and provisions to load her. 



2 14 The Vacation 

A bait box, a game bag, a creel ; 
And then he went fishing and gunning, 

And waddling and spluttering around. 
And sweating and fuming and running. 

And wondering where rest would be found. 

He shot a tom-tit on a willow. 

He caught a small bream by the tail; 
At night as he tossed on his pillow. 

He dreamed that some debtor would fail. 
And he, far away 'neath the larches, 

A-fighting mosquito and gnat. 
Would never know what stealthy marches 

The " other bank fellers " were at. 

He rose with the tints of Aurora, 

Was ready for work by the dawn; 
He was off to the lake in his dory 

Before all the starlight was gone ; 
He fretted and worried his spirit 

At lazy men seeking the shade. 
Such fellows, he thought, could not merit 

The joys that prosperity made. 

*' They sleep until six in the morning; 

They skulk from the aixlors of noon; 
At every small cloud they take warning. 

And go from their fishing too soon. 
How can such folks enjoy a vacation? 

So idle and listless are they. 
As for me, I'll vacate like the nation ; 

I'm set in my mind it shall pay." 

He raced and he chased and he fretted, 
And dreamed of dire losses by night. 

For three sultry days, each regretted 

As so much clean cash gone from sight ; 

On the fourth morning, peevish and sighing. 



The Vacation 215 

He lay with an ague in bed, 
When the heat came he thought he was dying; 
The quinine it roared in his head. 

They laid him down soft on a litter, 

They bore him away to the train, 
The train whirled him home, but the glitter 

Of a month of vacation in vain 
Winked, twinkled and dazzled before him 

Thereafter, it tempted no more; 
But never he ceased to deplore him 

The cost of his outfit and store. 

He added it several times over 

To the sum of each mortgage he took ; 
More faithful to it than a lover, 

He figured it down in a book; 
His lifetime's one loss, its one sorrow 

That burned his poor soul to the core. 
He'd regain it to-day, but to-morrow 

He'd sigh to regain it once more. 

Thus fifty times over and over 

He won back his time and his " tin," 
And still studied hard to discover 

New tricks to absorb it again. 
The thought of that fearful vacation, — 

It haunted and worried him so 
That he perished, at last, of vexation, 

And died in the wormwood of woe. 

His heirs reared above his last slumber 

A ten-dollar stone with one lie, — 
They could only afford that small number, — 

« Of character noble and high," 
Then turned themselves loose on the booty 

And quarreled and squabbled like fun 
Till the lawyers took all — 'twas their duty — 

And then the vacation was done. 



ON THE TERRACE 

We walked upon the terrace high, 

And watched the broad St. Lawrence flow, 
And saw the great ships come and go: 

A tear stood trembhng in her eye; 

Upon the lash I saw it gleam 

And then I said, « No more, no more 
Think of the days long gone before, 

For they have vanished as a dream ! 

" I know the hist'ry, old and strange. 

Here Cartier came, 'tis Champlain's town. 
Here Laval wore his sable gown ; 

But weep no more, for all must change! 

" Though Frenchmen yield and England reign, 
Montcalm and Wolfe together lie. 
Though brave Montgomery fall hard by. 

No patriot blood is shed in vain. 

"All things," I said, "work out for good. 
And some high purpose lurks beneath 
Each passing sorrow's cruel sheath; 

Weep not o'er these old tales of blood ! " 

She looked me squarely in the face 

And set my dignity at bay, 

Then laughed until it fled away. 
And said she thought 'twas " out of place, 

" This stealing from the guide-book's lore," 
And cried, " A dear old pump like you 
216 



An Autufnn Reverie 217 

Is dull enough, heaven knows, for two, 
So, prithee, lecture me no more ! 

" As for that tear so round and ripe, 
That on your owlish fancy wrought, 
It came from one big whiff I caught 

From yon confounded Frenchman's pipe." 



AN AUTUMN REVERIE 



All purple and gold are the leaves on the trees. 

And the corn blades are withered and brown. 
While the elderly farmer is taking his ease. 

And driving each day into town. 
Where the oily-tongued man of insurance he'll 
meet 

And hear his sweet tones with a smile. 
And think that his heart is as free from deceit 

As his lips are unlettered in guile. 

II 

The lightning-rod peddler is out on the road 

And the woodpecker pecks on the limb, 
While the little snake struggles to swallow the 
toad 

And the bullfrog is taking a swim ; 
The pumpkins are ripe on the frost-bitten vine 

And the walnuts are falling amain, 
While the country boy sings to the musical swine 

As they munch the new corn in the lane. 

Ill 

The cunning opossum holds on by his tail, 
When old Sambo is shaking the bush; 



2i8 An Autufnn Reverie 

The screech-owl repeateth her shivering wail 

And the Hoosier feeds well on his mush; 
The men of " cheap clodings " are telling their 
lies, 
For the winter will shortly be here; 
And the glorious old bummer perceives, with sur- 
prise, 
That it frosts when the evenings are clear. 

IV 

The tramp he goes tramping and begging for 
bread, 

While his appetite groweth apace; 
Swell suppers still end with a swell in the head 

And the belle putteth flour on her face; 
The raccoon he racks through the fields of ripe corn 

And the watch dog he chases the sheep. 
While chanticleer crows in the cool, frosty morn 

To wake the bold granger from sleep. 



The aster still waves its proud head on the hill, 

As the golden-rod fades by the path; 
The miller he mills all the day in the mill 

And at night he counts up what he hath; 
While the editor edits his " patent insides " 

And the lawyer lives fat on — his lip, 
The tippler is up while the night still abides, 

For a generous, inspiriting nip. 

VI 

There's a deep, deadly light in the book agent's 
eye 
As she raps on the Methodist's door. 

Where the " Drunkard Reformed " has just bid- 
den good-bye, 



A Bear-i-tone 219 

To be back when his lecture Is o'er; 
But the newspaper wit, with his hand on his brow, 

Sitteth sad and encumbered and blue, 
For spring-poet gags are unseasonable now 

And the mother-in-law chestnut won't do. 



VII 

Oh, autumn, dear autumn! we love thy sweet 
reign ; 

Thy 'taters, thy cider, thy cheese; 
Thy spare-ribs and sausage are welcome again, 

But never thy cough and thy sneeze; 
Oh! bring us, dear autumn, thy rich pumpkin 
pies, 

With hickory nuts, hominy and squash, 
And solace our pockets and gladden our eyes 

With the gay, golden lustre of cash! 



A BEAR-I-TONE 

" WHOOP-Ia, whoop, tra, la, la, la! " 
Two dirty Polanders sing and shout, 

And the Cinnamon bear lifts up his paw 
And on his hind legs capers about; 

And the small boy's mouth is open wide. 

As if to invite the bear inside. 

" Whoop-la, whoop! " in the melting snow 
And slush of the street they splash around ; 

And the crowd that follows them to and fro, 
Rattles the coppers, with tinkling sound. 

Into the Polander's lousy hat. 

And Bruin boweth his thanks for that. 



220 Solomon's Epistle to yohn 

" Whoop-la, whoop ! " spring Hngers late, 
And bears eat greatly, so I've been told ; 

And keepers, to vanquish their hungry fate. 
Put Bruin at work in the storm and cold, 

And he growls at the weather, but who should 
care 

For the sullen whims of a snarling bear? 

" Whoop-la, whoop!" and the bulky brute 
Plays soldier so awkwardly, I declare. 

He acts like a very raw recruit, 

And dozens of men I've seen play bear. 

Are better up to their parts than he. 

Or any four-legged bear can be. 



SOLOMON'S EPISTLE TO JOHN 

Well, Johnny, my boy! How's your debts? — 

'Tis Christmas, you know what that means 
To a chap who don't pay as he gets : — 
Mine are bad enough; Governor bets 
I'll have suits in a week by the teens. 

But Christmas Is Christmas, you know, 
And I'll not be banged out of my fun. 
Though constables stand in a row 
Down the streets and the roads where I go. 
Each armed with subpoena and dim. 

I'm eager to see how it goes — 

The ball at the Eagle, you guess — 
That's it, and the dance at Will Crow's 
And the slelghride to Hill's, if it snows, 
With the girl in the striped silk dress. 



Solomon'' s Epstle to John 32 1 

Last year, — you remember it all, — 

I drove to a banquet at Clyde: 
What happened I cannot recall, 
But think that I grew very tall, 

Then wilted and shriveled and died. 

When I woke, with an ache in the head ; 

Myself and a pig or two more 
Were playing " dead beat " in a shed, 
Beneath the remains of a sled, 

Which sled was my sleigh day before. 

Well, Johnny, I owe for that sleigh. 
And the constable's taken my watch, 

But it's not worth five dollars to-day, 

'Though forty, I think, is to pay 

And the note with the squire, — just my notch! 

You see I've been bumming around. 

And having a great deal of fun : 
Have you seen my imported fox hound? 
He's the swiftest, so cheap, — why, confound 

It all! here in my vest is the dun. 

« Only thirty-five dollars," Jim writes, 

For such a most marvelous dog;" 
And then all his troubles recites. 
And gives me the neatest " invites " 

To settle for him and my grog. 

You see Jimmy keeps a saloon 

In Jacktown, on Michigan road, 
Sells whisky, breeds puppies, buys coon 
And all kinds of fur; — well, in June 

'Twas him sixty dollars I owed. 

That included the drams and the pup. 
And the fiddle Tom played at the fair ; 



222 Solomon'' s Epistle to yohn 

Now, I think, there's my tailor bill up. 
But I'll give the goose-driver a sup 
And get him to wait on that 'ere. 

It's only a trifle, you see; 

And tailors their money don't need; 
Two broadcloths at &ixty — his fee 
Three tweeds, forty each, priced by me, 

And then I owe Smith for my feed. 

If people would only be still 

And remember fun's fun at the worst, 
And, no matter who pays the bill. 
Each thirsty dog wishes his fill. 

So many fine chaps wouldn't burst. 

For, argue whatever you may. 

When a fellow is running down stairs, 
Every gamin's got something to say 
While he kicks you his own proper way, 
Till you're sadly in need of repairs. 

I'll remark, too, their general remarks 

Are not always kind nor polite: 
Friends indeed are these jolly fine larks 
While your money goes upward like sparks 
From the chimney a cold winter night. 

But when empty pockets are left, 

They fly away croaking like crows: 
While they curse you, you feel quite bereft 
And learn that your fun's had a heft 
You had never been led to suppose. 

Great Caesar! I'd never a thought, 

When I sat down to write, Johnny dear! 
I'd be talking so near like I ought 
About all this bothering for nought. 
Carousals and whisky and beer; 



Mud'pie Days 223 

And paying the bills for the chaps, 

And getting yourself into scrapes, 
Till your money is all gone to scraps. 
Credit ruined, and at your mishaps 

The bummers are grinning like apes. 



MUD-PIE DAYS 

Children together we romp and play, 

When the morn is fresh and fair, 
Then grow estranged in the broad'ning day 

By envy, ambition, care; 
But yearn, at heart, through the noontide blaze, 
For the sinless joys of our mud-pie days. 

O dimply doll, in the linsey dress! 

What princess could equal you 
To the toddling lovers you used to bless 

Or to flout, as the grown girls do. 
When you were queen and ruler of plays, 
In the guileless world of our mud-pie days? 

To gallop the door-yard blooms among 
On a brave stick-horse, by a lady's side ; 

To chase the speckled hen's downy young 
And to ford the well-drain's raging tide. 

Then scurry back in a lively chase, — 

What joyful times were our mud-pie days ! 

The future judge and the future clown, 

The future lady and lady's maid 
Were equals then, and the gaping town. 

That basked in sunshine, dozed in shade, 
To the clown and maid ascribed most praise, 
In the happy reign of our mud-pie days. 



224 The Fate of the Penny 

The things that the wise men ne'er foresee 
Are the things that happen, and so I say- 
That the village " Toby" is apt to be 
The country's pride in a future day ; 
And then the village herself will praise 
Because she gave him his mud-pie days. 



THE FATE OF THE FENNY 

" Please, mama's sick an' we got no bread, 
An' won't you a penny please to give? " 

" O, yes, my fellow," the good man said, 
" Your poor sick mama must rise and live, 

So here's your penny, go quick and buy 

A — stick of candy, or she may die." 

A smile shone round through the dirt and grime 
On the urchin's face, as he muttered low, 

"Thanks mister! but couldn't you make it a 
dime? 
For candy is mighty dear, you know. 

Not candy, 'twas bread, I meant to say!" 

But the good man was half a square away. 

That urchin stands there studying long, 
Deciding at last on chocolate drops. 

And knowing full well where weights are strong 
And clerks are careless, in there he hops. 

Three minutes later another streak 

Was seen in the dirt on either cheek. 



OULD PADDY FITZMORRIS 

OuLD Paddy FitzMorris 

Is eighty, they say, 

But he still loves to joke 

With the lads and be gay. 

Paddy totters a bit, 

As he walks, but his joy 

It seems to flow out 

From the heart of a boy. 

Long flourish the Emerald Isle in the sea. 

Its shillalah, its shamrock, its wake and itssphree, 

And Ould Paddy FitzMorris, O, long live he! 

Ould Paddy FitzMorris, 

Away in the West, 

Far, far from green Erin, 

Will sink to his rest; 

But he who is happy 

And gay at four-score, 

Will scarcely repine 

When his journey is o'er. 

Then long live Ould Ireland, the gem of the sea, 

With its harp and its memories of old minstrelsy. 

And Paddy FitzMorris, O, long flourish he. 

Ould Paddy FitzMorris 
Has now laid away 
The spade and the shovel — 
His friends many a day — 
And when the sun shines. 
And the weather is fair. 
He walks up the street 
And the lads meet him there; 

225 



226 Patrick at the Capitol 

And with jest and with laugh set the air ringing 

free 
To broad jokes of Ould Ireland, its wake and its 

sphree, 
And they end with this toast, to which all will 

agree: 
" Ould Paddy FitzMorris, O, long flourish he." 

1883 



PATRICK AT THE CAPITOL 

Aloft, in flowing garb, she stood, 

Her Indian head-gear waving high — 
Fair Freedom's Goddess brave and good; 

But Patrick Shane was full of "rye" 
And bowed a livelier head then hers 

Against the fluted column's face, 
Where pass the thousand worshipers 

Of freedom, elegance and grace. 

There, on the eastern portico 

Of the great Capitol, he slept; 
The multitudes, with ceaseless flow, 

Through halls and corridors, on swept 
Beneath the mighty dome and saw 

The grand, historic paintings there. 
Or gazed, with ill-dissembled awe. 

Upon the statues. Free of care. 
Our Patrick Shane still leaned his head 

Against the lofty pillar's face, 
And, to his credit be it said. 

Was noiseless as the hidden ace 
That sllppeth from the player's sleeve 

To make the bold trump-holder grieve. 



Patrick at the Capitol 227 

I see you shake your solemn head, 

And hear you mutter, "What a shame!" 
« Drunk, where the Nation's light is shed ! 

Drunk, in the very ark of fame. 
At Freedom's holiest shrine!" But hold! 

You may be wrong, and so may I ; 
We should not be so over-bold ; 

Perhaps his weakness is not " rye," 
Nor even good corn "W^hisky, old ; 

He may have been, I will not say 
He was, on Freedom's nectar "tight," 

Or "loose," or "drunk," or what you will; 
But there, on Capitolian hill. 

At the great portal facing east 
He sat, from care awhile released, 

And leaned, in true Bacchantian grace. 
His Celtic head against the face 

Of fluted column holding high 
The lofty portico, and knew 

Such sleep as only " corn" or "rye" 
Or Freedom brings its votaries to. 

I gazed upon his sandy hair 

And nose in blossom, and I said, 
"O Freedom! thou art great and fair, 

And ever to be worship-ed! 
Here, in thy palace, thy strong-hold. 

Temple and tower, thy humble child 
May come, and, careless of the cold 

That nips him sharply, " draw it mild" 
From jug or bottle or the free. 

Grand inspiration, fresh from thee. 
Until he sits and bends his trunk. 

And bows his head and knows the bliss 
Of being most supremely drunk 

In such a hallowed place as this. 



THE CAMP MEETING 

NEGRO DIALECT 



Heahdat ole Camp meetin hawn! 

Blowen fah ercross de cawn, 

Foh de Augus' sun am hot 

An de chicken 's in de pot 
An de dumplin an de tater '11 soon be dah; 

So, Penina, stir de fiah 

While de hymn 's a gettin highah, 

Foh de preachah an de saint 

Dey mus' eat, er dey mus' faint, 
Wen dey tackle de ole debble in dis wah. 

II 

Ha'k, O, sinnah! heah dem shout! 

See dem monahs comen out; 

Heah dem preachas preachen loud ; 

See dem eldahs looken proud 
As de glory ob de cross am magnified! 

O ! we'll climb de golden stair 

An de pinnacles ob air! 

We will be de crownen gems 

In dem New Jerusalems 
Wen de chariot 's done an' swung us twudder 
side. 

Ill 

Oh! dis ole camp meetin kin' 
Ob religum suit de min' 
Dats not biggoty noh vain, 
Noh contented to ermain 

228 



The Camp Meeting 229 

In de wo'mwood an' de spicknahd an' de gall ; 

An de step dem shepahds keep 

Is so natchel foh de sheep, 

Dat de sheep dey trot so fas' 

Dat de shepahds dey would pass 
Ef de lambs dey didn't slip sometimes an fall. 

IV 

Heah de sistahs sing an shout 

Ez de 'Zortahs go erbout 

Wid de wahnin an de hope 

Dat'll break de debble's rope 
Dat he bin' de sinnah wid so ha'd an fas'; 

Foh it snap ez quick ez sin 

Wen he lets religum in, 

An de joy dem postles fin' 

Is de hallelujah kin', 
An de glory ob de story always las'. 



On dis ole camp meetin groun' 

Listnen to de gospel soun. 

Wen de preacha shed his coat 

An de sweat begin to float 
An de aamens an de glorys beat de air; 

Den de joy come swif an strong; 

Den de chariot move erlong ; 

Den de sinnah 'gin to shake ; 

Den de debble 'gin to quake; 
An de sky ben downa'd to de richus' prayer. 

VI 

See de ole camp meetin grace 
Shinen in each cullad face, 
As dey tramp de tremlin-groun' 
In de ole-time walk-aroun'; 



230 The Camp Meeting 

O ! de white folks has now powah such as dey ! 

Wen de walls ob Jericho 

Gets a rocken to an fro, 

An de hallelujahs ring 

To de glory ob de King, 
Hits de time to be upon de hebenly way. 

VII 

Ha'k, to dat camp meetin* hawn 

How it sings ercross de cawn; 

How it hoUahs come up highah 

Fum debrumstone an de fiah! 
How it wauns yer dat de day am passen by ! 

Dat yo' po', sick, shiv'en soul 

Soon mus feel de Johdan roll, 

An yo' needin by yo' side 

One to lead yo' fru de tide, 
An pint out de glory places in de sky. 

VIII 

So, Penina, stir de fiah, 

Foh dem preachas soon'll tiah; 

Let de pot pie be well done 

'Fo' de turnen ob de Sun 
Pas de noon spot where dem shadders gets de 
leas'; 

Foh dis glorus 'llgus fight 

Shahps de preacha's appetite. 

An de sistahs, bruvvahs too 

Mus' dey mohtal strenf ernew 
Wid de pot pie an de tater ob de feas'. 



CESAR'S STORY 

NEGRO DIALECT 

Wen I cum fum Alabama, 

In de eighteen sixty-fo, 
I were feelin' bout as gawjus 

As de big clown in de show. 
Niggahs den were outen mahket 

An a steppin mighty proud, 
An a praisen Abum Linkum 

Berry 'diciously an loud : 

An dis darkey were a totin 

Ob a papah all erbout 
Sayin dat, as fur de sarvin 

Uncle Sam, his job were out; 
Dats wut made me feel de bestest 

Fur yer dassent ebber say 
Dat hits any so't of pleashu 

To be shot at day by day. 

Wen I thought of comin nothwad 

Dey were one thing in de paf, 
Hits a berry common 'went, too, 

An' '11 maybe make you laugh; — 
'Twere a yallah gal in Huntsville 

Wid er baby in comman' — 
Wy it 'zembled me so 'zackly 

I could nebber un'erstan'. 

But I 'eluded dat to stay dar 
Were not any good fob me, 

231 



232 C Cesar's Story 

An I pined to see dis no'th Ian' 
Dat had don an* made us free; 

So I said fahwell to Lucy 
An de little yallah chile; 

An Miss Lucy — I could heah her 
Cryin no'th'ad many a mile. 

Way ercross de 'Hio ribber 

Seemed es uf I still could heah 
Lucy cryin to dat baby 

An a wailin' foh her deah; 
Den my haht were like to bustin. 

An my eyes were mighty red ; 
Fink it mus' hev been de agah 

Dat were howlin in my head. 

Way out heah in Injeana 

Dahkey gals is mighty fine, 
An I soon fo'got Miss Lucy 

An dat little babe of mine, 
'Gwine roun to de culla'd picnics, 

Dancin to de fiddle's squall 
Wid de gals of 'Catah county, 

Sweet as pictahs on de wall. 

Bimeby, — dunno how it happened,- 

But I gaged my haht an han 
To de little gipsy Susan, 

Proudest niggah in de Ian. 
Susy's pa bed eighty akahs. 

An a cabin made o' plank. 
An erbout five hunna'd dollahs 

Down to Greensbu'g in de bank. 

Susy cloved herself in satin 

Dat look like de buttahflies, 
Or dat paht of peacock feathahs 



C Cesar's Story 233 

Dat exembles bosses' eyes; 
An she talked de school-house langwidge, 

And her eyes were like de stahs 
Wen my fingahs on de banjo 

Flung down all dem music bahs. 

O ! she lubbed me mighty sahtin, 

An I lubbed her papa's Ian, 
An er fine close an er langwidge 

An de jewels on er han; 
But no soonah was I gaged, sah, 

Dan de worl went swimmin roun, 
An I hea'd a gal an baby 

Cryin way down in de groun. 

Way down cross de 'Hio ribber, 

Fru Kentuck an Tennessee 
To de Huntsville, Alabama, 

Jes a minit toted me; 
'Twel I thought dat I w^ere dyen 

In my good ole muzzers bed. 
An Miss Lucy, wid de baby, 

Were a weepin' at my head. 

Dunno how it all compoted 

Wid de awdinary way 
Dat dis typho-be-malaria — 

Wat you call 'im — do to-day ; 
But foh weeks an weeks togeddah 

I lay mo'nen all de w'ile 
Bout Miss Lucy down to Huntsville 

An de little yallah chile. 

Atter w'ile I hea'd de doctah 

Say hits not use come no mo', 
Bettah tell im dat his baggage 

Now done checked fo' tuddah sho; 



534 C Cesar's Story 

Den I fell erway to dreamin, 

An I seed an angel stan' 
By de bedside dat were holden 

Nuzzer angel by de han'. 

Fust a golden mist were bout 'em, 

But it brightened slow erway 
'Twel Miss Lucy an de baby 

Stood dah plainer dan de day; 
Den my ahms flung off de kivah 

An rech out ter clasp de air; 
Lan o' libbin! halleluyah! 

Lucy an de chile were dere! 

Den I jumped up straight an shouted, 

An de angels 'gan ter sing, 
Wile I danced an slapped de jubah 

An I cut de pigeon wing; 
Nebah thought erbout my gahments, 

But jes danced dah 'twel I fell 
In my Lucy's lovin ahmses, 

An de chile sot up a yell. 

Long, dey say twere many weekses 

Atter dat befo' I foun' 
Dat I were not in my coffin 

Free or fo' feet in de groun'; 
But Miss Lucy an de baby 

Nuss me up so pow'ful fine 
Dat de fevah saw twere gin'im 

An recluded to decline 

Any fuddah operwations 

On dis dahkies cawpul frame; 

So de preacha' come an jined me 
In de mastah's holy name 



Ccesar's Story 235 



To de yallah gal fum Huntsville 
An de little culla'd chile; 

Den Miss Susy cut our 'quaintance, 
But we's still erbove de sile. 

An er lot o' happier dahkies 

You'll not fine in any day 
Dan dem little niggaroonses 

Dat erbout our cabin play. 
Heah de moral ob dis story! 

Tis dat leaben lub for wealf 
Are not good fo' de digestion, 

An am powful on de healf. 



THE LESSON AND OTHER POEMS 



The poems in the following- pages, with a few others, were printed 
privately ia a little volume bearing the above title, in the year 1871. 
The volume was dedicated as follows : 

TO MY FATHER AND MOTHER, 

Who, I trust, after years of separation, are reunited in the better life, 
and whom, in kindly thought or hallowed memories, I cannot separate, 
nor recall the compassionate love of the one, without renewing the 
long suflfering: faith and hope of the other; this little book is afiFection- 
ately dedicated by their son and debtor, B. S. P, 



PRELUDE 

You asked me y dear friends, in the fair month of roses^ 

To write you some verses in elegant rhyme, 
All radiant with summer and cheerful with posies, 

And delightfully sweet in their musical chime; 
And I made for answer, if you will remember. 

That, though summer glorified all with its blushes, 
Still deep in my soul was the grief of November, 

And my sorrowful notes would not chord with 
the thrushes; 
But said, I would gather the old songs together, — 

The rude rhymes I chattered in other sad days. 
The notes that went tripping in all sorts of weather. 

And sought only your never critical praise. 
So here I present them, unpruned, the old ditties 

Of sorrow and love, and the lyrical notions 
Of freedom and labor; not fit for the cities. 

But just the rude offspring of country emotions; 
So take them, dear friends; if they give any pleasure. 

Or charm you one moment away from your pain. 
My toil is repaid in that boimtiful measure 

That comes when we know thai we've toiled not in 
vain. 



239 



THE LESSON 



A TINY rill and a little child, 

In a fair and lovely land, 
And the child has heaped in the water's edge 

A pile of the yellow sand ; 
Then tries to hold the current back 

With a little dimpled hand. 

But sunken like a rose leaf wet 

With nectar sweet as dew, 
The little hand beneath the tide 

Transparent meets the view. 
And, with the mien of a thoughtful man 

Who sees a wonder new, 

He queries " why they will not stop — 
These drops that laugh and sigh — 

I cannot hold them in my grasp; 
They still go rushing by; 

They will not pause, they cannot rest; 
Do the waters never die? 

" They murmur, murmur, as they go; 

I know not what they say ; 
But yet I think they sing to me 

Of a region far away. 
Of cities, and domes, and palaces, 

A river and a bay. 

« Sometimes I hear my robin's voice. 

And then my sparrow's song; 
And now the blue-jay's rollic call, 
241 



242 The Lesson 

As the water skips along; 
And now my drowned hand is numb, 
And the current swift and strong. 

" I wonder if the waters think, 
And know the things they say, 

And why they ripple, and run, and rush, 
And journey night and day ; 

And if they know I watch them here, 
As they tinkle on their way? 

" They whisper, whisper the prettiest things! 

I wish I knew their talk: 
It's like the wind when the maple leaves 

Come pattering on the walk; 
It's like the rain when it strikes the pads 

On my tiger-lily stalk. 

" It's like — I know not what it's like — 

But it seems to speak to me 
Of gliding keels, and sailing ships, 

And things that are to be 
When I am grown a man, and dwell 

Beside the restless sea. 

" And then it sings, ' I grow, I grow ; 

I'm here but a little rill; 
In the orchard I'm fully a yard across; 

In the meadow wider still; 
And the children float their little boats 

On my breast at William's mill.' 

" I hear no more the robin's song, 

Nor the sparrow's treble call ; 
But a mighty river's rush and roar, 

Where shadows of mountains fall; 
And surges of a wonderful sea, 

Whose cliffs are white and tall. 



The Lesson ; 

" From lesson and play I sail away 

And dream what I shall know 
When, like the rill, I move along, 

And better and larger grow ; 
And when I think of this happy day 

It will seem so long ago!" 

So long ago! So long ago! 

But the ne'er forgotten rill 
And the questions that haunt the little boy, 

Who is sitting here so still. 
May haunt forever, may shape his thoughts, 

May inspire him, soul and will. 



II 



A little rill and a wrinkled man, 

In a fair and lovely land. 
And he has heaped in the water's edge 

A pile of the yellow sand; 
Then tries to dam the tiny beck, 

With a weak and trembling hand. 

Ah! thirty summers have past, he sighs, 

In a treble, shrill and slow, 
Since I returned from over the sea, 

In life's meridian glow, 
In the strength of my fifty stalwart years 

To smile on the brooklet's flow. 

And then I thought of a little child 

Who, forty years before. 
Beheld a vision of wealth and strength, 

And wisdom, and love and more — 
Aye, more than I had ever borne 

From the great world's mighty store. 



H3 



244 ^^^ Lesson 

It seemed to me but yesterday — 

It seems just so this noon — 
That, full of childish hope, I heard 

This brooklet's lightsome rune, 
And, from the slender music, learned 

Life's most exultant tune. 

But I was only fifty then; 

My thoughts were hot and wild 
With finance, politics, and trade; 

For love was long exiled 
From active thought to silent life; 

I soon forgot the child. 

But all the toil is over now ; 

My visions long withdrawn; 
And so I sit beside the rill. 

And think upon the gone. 
And feel myself a little child. 

That, in the happy dawn, 

Has wakened to the robin's song, 

And to the sparrow's call. 
And sought the brooklet's yielding verge 

To hear the measures fall 
The tinkling, whispering waters make 

Above the pebbles small. 

A child again! yet not a child. 

Arid the brooklet seems to sigh 
For the lad it knew, when his years were few 

And his heart was beating high, 
For time flows on, as the brook flows on. 

And boy and man must die. 

And so beside the rill I sit 
And feel the wonder still, 



The Lesson 245 

For boyish thoughts and childish dreams 

Inspire me, soul and will, 
And some are memories and some 

The future must fulfill. 

No more to passion love belongs, 

Nor hope to golden gains; 
The under-current of my years 

Fills all my life, as rains, 
In winter, fill the dwindled brooks, 

And wake their old refrains. 

The chords of love's immortal lyre 

Are trembling on the keys. 
For me, at last, a gentle hand 

Shall wake their melodies — 
Her hand that waits me where the stream 

Shall meet th' eternal seas. 

I dream of domes and palaces 

Not reared by mortal hands ; 
Of cities by the summer sea, 

And far, unnumbered lands 
That roll their wealth, in music, down 

A million shining strands. 

I greet the friends of other days. 

Where endless joys distill 
As freely as the dews that fall 

Along this laughing rill, 
And yet, O child ! thy hopes inspire. 

Inspire me, soul and will. 



Ill 



A new grave in the church-yard nowj 
The rill flows on and on; 



246 The I^esson 

Young hearts are beating on its verge ; 

Love waketh with the dawn; 
But never a robin nor sparrow sings 

A note about the gone. 

Lives flow, like waters to the sea, 

With freights of good or ill; 
And ever and ever the dear Lord holds 

The strings of their being still, 
And leads them down their devious ways 

His purpose to fulfill. 

One cries, "O sinner!" and one, " O saint!" 

And the river's banks recede; 
One grasps at the pebbles on the marge, 

In the depth of his golden greed ; 
One chases a bubble, and one but floats. 

As the rushing waves proceed. 

But deep in the lives that rush and toss, 

And jostle and swirl and flow. 
Are childhood's visions and hopes and prayers, 

And the loves of long ago, 
To shrive the soul in its agony, 

And to bless extremest woe. 

And often the pallet of rags and straw. 
And the rafters, brown and bare. 

Are seen by age through the blissful lens 
Of youth, long fresh and fair. 

Till they are sweet, like the summer skies; 
And soft, like the summer air. 

The prison wall and the scaffold plank 

In memory cease to be ; 
But, children again, the convicts stand 

On the brink of the "death-cold sea;" 



Indian Graves 247 

« For except as little children ye come, 
Ye cannot come to me." 

Be rich, or poor, or high, or low ; 

Whenever the race is run, 
God only knows His erring child 

As a father his erring son; 
And so it is very sweet to say, 

" Dear Lord ! Thy will be done." 



INDIAN GRAVES 

All along the winding river, 

And adown the shady glen. 
On the hill, and in the valley. 

Are the graves of dusky men. 

We are garrulous intruders 

On the sacred burying grounds 
Of the Manitou's red children, 

And the builders of the mounds. 

Here the powah and the sachem. 

Here the warrior and the maid. 
Sleeping in the dust we tread on, 

In the forests we invade, 

Rest as calmly and as sweetly 

As the mummied kings of old. 
Where Gyrene's marble city 

Guards their consecrated mold. 

Through the woodland, through the meadow, 

As in silence oft I walk. 
Whispering on the passing breezes 

Fancy hears the red man's talk. 



248 Indian Graves 

Muttering low and very sweetly 
Of the good Great Spirit's love, 

That descends like dews of evening 
On his children, from above. 

Still repeating from the prophets 
And the sachems gray and old. 

Stories of the southwest Aidenn, 
Curtained all around with gold, 

Where the good and great Sowanna 
Calleth all his children home. 

Through the hunting grounds eternal 
Free as summer winds to roam. 

Singing wildest songs of wailing 
For the dead upon their way 

On the four days' journey homeward 
To the realms of light and day; 

Chanting soft and gentle measures. 
Lays of hope and songs of love, — 

Now like shout of laughing waters, 
Now like cooing of the dove. 

Then anon his feet make echo 
To the war song's fiendish howl, 

And revenge upon his features 
Sets the pandemonian scowl. 

See! again the smoke is curling. 
From the friendly calumet, 

And the club of war is buried, 
And the star of slaughter set. 

But, alas! imagination, 

Ever weaving dream on dream. 
Soon forgets the buried red men 

For some more congenial theme. 



The Widow^s Story 249 

But, although their race is ended, 

And forever, over here, 
Let their virtues be remembered, 

While we fervently revere 

All their ancient burial places, — 

Hill and valley, plain and glen, 
Honor every sacred relic 

Of that fading race of men. 

Gitche Manitou has called them 

From the chase and war path here. 

To the mystic land of spirits 
In some undiscovered sphere. 

In the land of light and glory 

That no sachem's eye hath seen, 
Where the rivers flow forever, 

And the woods are always green, 

Where the winter sun, descending. 
Burns the southwest sky to flame, 

Shall the Indian race be gathered 
In the great Sowanna's name. 

1856 



THE WIDOW'S STORY 

'TwAS Christmas when the widow came, as many 

a time before. 
To find the heartless world shut out beyond the 

deacon's door. 
And there, amidst the warmth and glow, to lay 

her trembling heart, 
All bruised and broken, open to the good man's 

healing art. 



250 The Widow's Story 

For he had ears to hear the cry of souls that suf- 
fer pain, 

And yearning sorrow never sought his sympathy 
in vain: 

His w^ords were few, his counsels wise, his faith 
and hope sincere, 

And so the mourning woman spake while stifling 
many a tear: 



" They tell me a Christian woman, like I profess 

to be. 
Must drown the voice of her sorrow and make 

her heart be still, 
And if her children will leave the Lord for 

naughty ways, then she 
Must cut them off forever, as heirs to endless ill. 
And the elder came and scolded me because, as 

you must know, 
I went to see my daughter Jane, in a den of vice 

and woe, 
And said it was unseemly in a Christian woman 

like me, 
To enter in at the threshold of a den of infamy; 
That natural love should all give way before the 

love of the Lord, 
And if our children are vile and mean that they 

are more abhorred 
By the dear God above us, and by us should also 

be, 
Than heathen in their filth and crime, in lands be- 
yond the sea; 
And then he talked of Jane, and said that I had 

trained her well, 
But often the good Lord tries our faith with the 

very imps from hell. 



The Widow's Story 251 

Put into the forms of our children; and if we love 

them still, 
As they go in sinful ways, it shows that our car- 
nal will 
Is not subdued as it should be, and brought in 

sweet accord 
With the will of the church that worketh the 

perfect will of the Lord ; 
And so I sat and listened, till my heart was like 

to burst, 
And my soul within me was yearning with a fiery, 

burning thirst 
That would not be abated nor satisfied at all. 
Till I held Jane up in the arms of prayer once 

more, to the Lord of all; 
And when I had finished praying, I cannot tell 

you why, 
It seemed like a peace was round me, from the 

very courts on high; 
And then I sat and wondered ;kvhat James would 

say and do. 
If he could come back in health again, as he left 

me in sixty-two; 
For you know he fell at Richmond, a fortnight 

after he left. 
There, on the cupboard, you see his cap, that a 

rebel saber cleft, — 
What would he say, should I tell him that Henry 

and Jo were dead ? 
(Henry died in the Libby, and Josy was shot 

through the head 
When our boys met Hood at Franklin, — you well 

remember the time;) 
And how Jane, our only daughter, was led to a 

life of crime. 
By a high born wretch, who won her, destroyed 

her and went his way 



252 The Wido-w's Story 

To meet the smiles of the ladies and bask in the 

cheerful day 
Of many a social circle of wealth and high degree, 
That would close its doors in horror against my 

girl and me; 
What would he say, should I tell him how the 

elders, wise and nice. 
Bade me drive Jane from under my roof, for I 

must not sanction vice. 
Nor evil in any shape at all, if I would a Christian 

be; 
And so my injured and weeping girl was driven 

away from me; 
Away from me, dear Lord, away, where could 

the poor girl go. 
To find a heart in sympathy with all her wrongs 

and woe? 
Would the pious take her in? Ah no! for even 

her slightest touch 
Would soil the holy garments of the righteous 

over much. 
Society, so nice without, so rotten and base within, 
Held up its hands in horror at such a child of sin; 
And the only place in all the world that was open 

to her, you see, 
With a welcome that did not question, was a den 

of infamy. 
Where fallen women gather to ply their evil 

trade. 
And receive the smiles of lofty men, where none 

do make afraid. 
Who would not dare with honest hands in the 

light of open day. 
To meet their soiling touch or point their lives to 

a better way. 
Well, thus I questioned myself alone, for an hour 

or so and then 



The Widow's Story 253 

I remembered that James, although he was always 

the best of men, 
And I had often persuaded him to join the church 

and stand, 
A candidate elected for a home in Canaan's land, 
Would ever turn away, and smile, and say with a 

friendly sigh, 
' My dear, you'll find that the better road lies 

another way, by and by. 
For they theorize and maunder, to make their own 

heaven sure. 
But they'd shut the doors of paradise in the face 

of the struggling poor; 
And the weary, heavy laden with burdens of care 

and sin. 
Can find in their priestly language no call to enter 

in. 
The touch of their jeweled fingers and sweep of 

their silken skirts. 
Are not to be soiled by mechanics, nor the women 

who make their shirts; 
They talked of the Lord in the manger, and 

preach of him on the cross. 
But they'd melt down that calf of Aaron's, and 

quarrel over the dross; 
And that woman of Samaria would arouse their 

saintly spleen, 
And they'd turn up their perfect noses at Mary 

Magdalene,' " — 
"Now hold!" responded the good man, "remem- 
ber 'tis Christmas day, 
And we should lay all our bitter thoughts and 

memories away. 
The saints, you tell of, widow, are the leaders, 

who blindly guess 
That the church of Christ is builded to the model 

ol selfishness, 



254 Rhyme of the Withered Leaves 

Your James was right, I grant it, and yet he was 

wrong, I see, 
That he aimed a blow at the Christian, which 

should fall on bigotry ; 
Go seek your sorrowing daughter, and make her 

pure again. 
And heaven will guard you safely from the puny 

wrath of men." 



RHYME OF THE WITHERED LEAVES 



Gold and scarlet, dry and brown, 
Ripened leaves are quivering down; 
See! the ground is covered o'er 
With a many -colored store; 
All the paths along the wood, 
All the forest solitude — 
Every dear, sequestered nook, 
Where I read my summer book, 
Where the vernal violet 
In its modest fringe was set, 
And the robin sang of love. 
From the greening boughs above, 
Are with fallen glories spread ; 
Crowns from many a kingly head. 
Wreaths from many a noble brow 
Lie amid these ruins now. 



II 



Every gust that hurries by 

Whirls the withered leaves on high, 

And they sweep along the ground 



Rhyme of the Withered Leaves 255 

With a mournful, rustling sound, 

Till the hillsides interpose. 

Where they heap in deep long rows 



III 



O ! it is a pleasure sweet. 

Where our hills and valleys meet 

To recline amid the leaves 

On these Indian Summer eves. 

Watching all the gates of day, 

Closing on the lurid way 

Of the Sun, who wraps a shroud, 

Made of gold and amber cloud. 

Round his godlike form, and goes 

Proudly to his night's repose. 



IV 



All the springs of being move 
To the finest notes of love, 
Blending with the sorrowing air 
Like echoes from a distant prayer. 
So soft, unsyllabled, and low. 
We weep, yet feel no cause for woe. 



All tenderer feelings grow Intense 
And banish all of groveling sense; 
The past, re- wrought, appears again, 
And, with the spirit's piercing ken. 
We see from out these mortal shells. 
The brimming tide of soul that swells. 
Expanding, till its flow must be 
As boundless as infinity; 
Our future seems to reach and blend 



256 Claribell 

With being that shall never end; 

The loved, the lost, the mourned and true, 

Each form, each face, the same, we knew 

Them long ago, and each delight 

And hope that set in rayless night, — 

All sweet impressions, gentle words. 

E'en shout of brooks and song of birds 

Return to sadden or to cheer, 

To wake the smile, evoke the tear. 

Then pass, to blend with that broad sea 

Of life, that flows eternally. 



CLARIBELL 

Claribell! 
Through the morning calm and sweet 
Comes the tramp of little feet. 
Pattering at the open door. 
Tinkering on the naked floor, 
Where the merry sunbeams fell 
Long ago, dear Claribell. 

Claribell ! 
Now the robin and the jay 
Chatter where the branches sway 
O'er the pathway, down the walk. 
Hallowed by thy pleasant talk ; 
By thy talk and by thy song, 
When the summer days were long; 
And the tangled ivies meet, 
Meet and blossom where thy feet 
In our pleasant journeys fell. 
Little darhng Claribell. 

Claribell! 
Not the glory of the morn. 
Glimmering through the miles of corn; 



Claribcll 35^ 



Not the polyphoniaii notes, 
Fluting from the feathered throats; 
Not a thousand happy hours 
Nursed by summer in her flowers ; 
Nor the terraces of light 
Fading from the path of night; 
Sweet emotions, soft desires, 
Love, with all her blissful fires, 
Shall renew thee, as of old ; 
For thy little feet are mold, 
And the summer breezes swell 
O'er thy slumber, Claribell. 

Claribell! 
We have wandered far and long 
Since we heard thy morning song; 
We have tarried long and late. 
Watching, where the sunbeams wait, 
For thy shadow, that no more 
Glides along the cottage floor. 
What are half a score of years. 
Months of agony and tears. 
Days of darkness and distress, 
Fleeting hours of happiness? 
Through them all we raise the cry, 
" Come from out the fields of sky. 
From the silent realms of space, 
Dimpled chin and sunny face, 
Eyes with laughter brimming o'er, 
Shine upon us here once more; 
Here once more our pleasures swell, 
Dearest angel, Claribell." 

Claribell! 
Never more thy form we see. 
Clothed with our mortality, 
Yet we know lliee very well, 



25S Aly Robin 

Like some happy miracle, 
Wrought by unseen hands to bless 
Even paths of wretchedness; 
Yet thy presence, pure and sweet, 
GHding on witli noiseless feet, 
Hovering viewless in the air, 
Meets and greets us everywhere; — 
Not beyond some golden door, 
Hidden from us evermore. 
Not upon some far-off strand. 
Beckoning with a shadow hand, 
Like the wise and great who die, 
Ghostly templars of the sky, 
Trumpeting from awful heights. 
Warning through the solemn nights; — 
But about us pure and calm. 
Constant blessing, constant psalm. 
Growing with the growing years, 
Heightening joy and sweetening tears; 
So we love our darling well 
Lost, but present Claribell! 



MY ROBIN 

Out in the cheery breath of morn, 
Up from the meadow winging. 

Before the day is fairly born, 
I hear my robin singing. 

Last year, before the maple's crown 
Received its purple glory. 

This jolly fellow set the town 
A-ringing with his story. 

And now, before the snow is gone, 
His merry pipings greet us. 



My Robin 259 

The soul of Spring's impending dawn, 
In music come to meet us. 

O! robin in the cherry tree, 

With heart so brave, yet tender. 

Why singest thou so merrily, 

In the morning's ruddy splendor? 

Thou wakest thoughts of other years, 

When being's sunny fountain 
Seemed flowing onward through the spheres. 

From some celestial mountain. 

Old strains of music, wild and sweet, 

Are in thy notes returning; 
Old greetings, such as children meet, 

Set all my spirit yearning. 

And dreaming of the pleasant wood. 
Where maple boughs were swinging, 

And, children of the neighborhood. 
We mocked the robin's singing. 

The curly heads are by my side, 

I hear the children's laughter, 
And see the dreams that hope denied. 

But cherished ever after. 

And now, as in the swooning waves 

Of half-unconscious sadness, 
I hear, above the little graves. 

The robin's song of gladness. 

The little feet have silent grown, 

Or seek the wood no longer. 
But memory still retains her own. 

And love than death is stronger; 



26o August 

And childish ways and childish plays 
And children's voices ringing, 

Float upward from departed days 
Whene'er my robin's singing. 



AUGUST 

The tide of being moveth now, 
Like some broad river's onward flow, 
With earnest murmur, deep and low. 

The woods are silent, save by spells 
Some strain of insect music swells, 
Or some lone bird her sorrow tells. 

Too earnest for the laugh and shout. 
That heralded the young s^Dring out 
From the long winter's gloom and doubt, 

Life standeth on her middle way 
Between the birth of flowery May 
And Winter's frost and sere decay, 

And seems to listen, pleased and long, 
To the low burden of a song 
Unheard by any mortal throng. 

The leaves turn upward to the light, 
And like dim spectres, robed in white. 
The lazy clouds float out of sight. 

Where late the hills were crowned with wheat, 

The stubble glimmers in the heat. 

And, where the woods and meadows meet, 

The herds enjoy the shadow deep, 

And in his hollow house asleep. 

The squirrel doth the long hours keep. 



The Darkened Room 261 

The humming-bird that glances bright, 

A winged embodiment of light, 

From flower to flower, flight after flight. 

Seems an intruder on the low, 
Deep song and murmur that doth go 
Along with life's intensest flow. 

O life intense! O ardent time! 

Like flow of some great poet's rhyme, 

Resistless pours this luscious chime. 

It calms my brain, it soothes my soul. 
Till o'er me, past all ill's control. 
Sweet waves of calm enjoyment roll. 



THE DARKENED ROOM 

Out of the deepest sorrow. 
Out of the darkest night. 

Into the peaceful morrow. 
Comes the purest light. 

Out from the troubled spirit. 
That toils and battles long. 

Into the silence after. 

Flows the sweetest song. 

God, who cares for the sparrows, 

Watches you and me; 
Somewhere in the endless ages. 

Our heritage shall be. 

Faithful in every anguish, 
Trusting through the gloom. 

We shall be led, hereafter, 
Out of the darkened room. 



262 Oralie 

What if the dawn be hidden 
Under the hds of night, 

Till the eternal morning 
Bringeth supernal light; 

Who shall mock our patience, 
Or call our faith in vain ? 

God, who has given us sorrow, 
Will give us joy again. 



ORALIE 

Far over the regions. of sorrow. 
Across the dark river of sighs, 

I know that the sunlight, to-morrow. 
Shall glorify Oralie's eyes. 

But what if my Oralie perish. 
As perished the rose, in a day. 

And what if the beauty I cherish 
Should turn to be festering clay; 

What balm could my spirit discover 

In homilies dismal as pain, 
About the dark valley passed over. 

And death being Oralie's gain? 

Is it gain for the maid in her beauty, 
To fade and depart ere she knows 

The measures of love and of duty. 
Of Life, with its blisses and woes? 

Ah, no! 'twould be loss for the morning 
To burst in a moment to noon. 

The twilight, with golden adorning. 
Must preface the stars and the moon. 



Wandering 263 

*• 
Though morning in Hfe be the sweetest, 

The best ripened Hfe must be long, 
And the best ripened life is completest, 

No matter how sorrows may throng. 

We ripen in storms of affliction; 

No sorrow nor toil is in vain; 
We gather a sweet benediction 

From days of expressionless pain. 

And O ! when the spring-tide is flowing, 

And life is as buoyant as song. 
And when the bright summer is glowing 

In rapturous billows along, 

'Tis then that the spirit, expanding 
Like blossoms that open at day, 

Leaps up to the highest commanding 
Of love that possesses its way. 

So upward, thro' darkness and sorrow. 
Through pleasures that halo the night, 

We grow till we reach the to-morrow, 
Expand, till we enter the light. 



WANDERING 



Winter rules the world without; 
Gusts of snow-flakes whirl about. 
And the breeze is sharp and cold, 
As it sweeps the barren wold. 
Summer songsters, summer flowers, 
Sing not, bloom not in the bowers; 



264 "Wandering 

Yet I'm dreaming all day long 
Of a land of bloom and song — 
Some fair island in the sea, 
Clothed with green eternally — 
Where the birds of paradise 
Build amid the bowers of spice, 
And, from thousand tiny throats, 
One harmonious ditty floats. 
Through the seasons fair and long. 
Sweetest tide of choral song. 

II 

There, through all the changing time, 
Fruits are in their luscious prime, 
And the seas of bloom outpour 
Finest odors, and the shore 
Lies beneath a reef of shells, 
In whose corrugated cells 
Every fair and lovely dye 
Known to earth or sea or sky, 
Hides, through all the ardent days. 
From the sun's intrusive gaze. 

Ill 

Oft in fancy I retreat 
To this paradisal seat. 
And with one who, long ago. 
Learned the song I cannot know, 
Saw the glories that to me 
Are a shadowed mystery — 
Through that thought-created land 
Wander onward hand in hand. 

IV 

So we see, through evening mist, 
Domes and towers of amethyst; 



Wandering 265 

Woods and mountains manifold; 
Spacious temples wrought of gold ; 
Paradisal lands of rest 
That no mortal foot has press'd ; 
New Jerusalems that stand 
Glorious in that wonder-land. 



Fades the day and fades the mist; 
Sink the towers of amethyst; 
And we learn what fruitful rays 
Builded up those walls of praise. 
When the sunlight quits the sky, 
All the glorious visions die; 
Yet, through ether clear and far, 
Shines the mellow evening star. 
So, when youth's warm tide is spent, 
Fade the lustres that it lent 
To the present and the gone. 
And the future's happy dawn; 
Yet the steadfast star of love 
Shines forever up above. 



VI 



Memory sketches, fancy paints, 
Regions worthy of the saints; 
Bears us thither, and we meet, 
Gliding on with noiseless feet, 
Some enchanted friend who took 
Life as but a summer book; 
Read it on a pleasant day ; 
Bowed her head and passed away ; 
And our wandering fancies range 
'Round this mystery of change. 
What is death ? we ask, and what 
Is there real ? What is not ? 



266 Wafidering 

What is life, and what its end ? 
Whither do our journeyings tend? 
Faded; absent; gone for aye; 
Yet forever 'round our way 
Are the dead: We see them still, 
Be our days of joy or ill; 
Shall we meet them, face to face, 
In some more ethereal place; 
Tread with them the pleasant shore, 
Whither they have gone before; 
Wander with them, hand in hand, 
Through some flowery Eden land? 
Shall we know the friends we love 
In the better world above? 
Ah! no answer! well, we wait 
Hitherside the golden gate, 
And in fancy oft retreat 
To some paradisal seat. 
Following some enchanted face. 
Lovely with its morning grace. 
Though the tides of youth be dead. 
Still the light of love is shed 
O'er us, till we fade and fall ; 
After that we shall know all, 
Or know nothing — who shall tell? 
Yet God doeth all things well. 
Deathless soul, or moldering clay, 
God has made a perfect way. 
We shall reach the end designed 
By the All-pervading Mind. 

VII 

Call it error, if you will; 
Yet I trust Jehovah's skill 
Is not balked by any plan 
Laid by demon or by man. 
And the ends He made us to, 



The Fireside 267 



Ever present in His view, 
Shall be filled at last by all ; 
Not a sparrow, even, shall fall 
Unaccounted or unknown; 
Not a seed that He has sown 
Perish in the silent ground, 
Till its uses shall be found. 



O! we can but trust and wait. 
Till death swingeth wide the gate. 
Then we dream that we shall be 
Given to life eternally, 
And our spirits shall retreat 
To some paradisal seat. 
Or shall wander, free and far. 
Through the realms of sun and star. 
But, however this shall be. 
Faith this promise bears to me, 
God will give me toil or rest. 
Peace or turmoil to my breast. 
Bliss or anguish, good or ill. 
As shall best my needs fulfill. 



THE FIRESIDE 

Die away, O evening wonder, 
From your glory in the west. 

For the silent hours are coming 
When the laborer shall rest. 

Pleasant are the smiles of morning. 
Gorgeous is the flaming noon, 

But the better fruit of being 
Ripens underneath the moon. 



268 The Fireside 

Round the merry fires of evening, 
When the lamps are blazhig bright, 

Shine for us the kindly faces 
Glorifying all the night. 

Then the voice of song and laughter 
Echoes through the cheerful room. 

And the glow vsathin is warmer. 
Deepening with the outer gloom. 

We grow tender with the poets, 
With the sages we are wise, 

With Divinity we gamble 
For the everlasting prize. 

All the climes the traveler visits 
Add their treasures to our store; 

Greek and Roman stand before us, 
Peerless in their ancient lore. 

All the sinewy thongs of iron, 
All the quivering nerves of wire. 

Binding sea and sea together. 
Bless us round our evening fire. 

Lo! the lightning from the heavens, 
Flashing earthward in its play. 

Bears the hourly thought of nation 
Unto nation far away. 

On its inky panorama 

Now the evening press repeats 
What the morning voice of Europe 

Uttered on a myriad streets. 

And we feel the heart of peoples, 
Wakened into newer life. 

From the old historic ages, 
BeatinsT on to nobler strife. 



The Fireside 269 

Upward still, in mighty cycles, 

Slowly moves the multitude, 
To the final culmination, — 

Each man's right is all men's good. 

Round our evening lamp we gather, 
From the world's concentered thought. 

What the pens of seers have written, 

What the thinkers' toils have wrought, — 

What the dubious lights of history 

Cast upon the sickening show 
Of misrule, and war and vengeance, 

Filling up " the earth's long woe,"— 

Only as we deal with others 

Shall the ministers of fate 
Deal with us, as men or nations, 

By our meeds of love or hate. 

But again the thoughts are centered 

In the circle gathered round ; 
Let the great world rave and struggle ; 

Leave the depths of thought profound. 

Here are gentle hearts that love us. 
Love us round our evening fire, 

Here are careful hands to guide us 
Where our wayward thoughts aspire. 

Let the passing hour be yielded 
Unto friendship's sweet domain; 

Let the social thought be cherished. 
Polished memory's golden chain. 

Hasten not, O fleeting moments. 
When our souls are thus in tune . 



270 Life 07jd Eff^ort 

To the finest notes of being 

Thrilling 'neath the silent moon. 

O ! through all our days of labor, 
Strifes and toilings, we aspire 

To be happy in the evening, 
With the circle round the fire. 



LIFE AND EFFORT 

And is the grief that haunts with endless moan 
A slow, consuming fire that will not die. 
But lifts its smoke and ashes to the sky, 
Till all the spirits' fountains simmer dry. 

Till love, and faith and heavenly hope have flown ? 

Not so, not so; each happy morn doth give 
Some new incentive to the earnest soul 
To wrestle onward in the billowy roll 
Of waves that thunder to a far-off goal, 

Where cries a voice forever, " Come and live!" 

The dying grapple with the illusive waves 
That seem to bear them to the happy shore, 
They faint and sink and grapple never more. 
But still the mirage rises just before, 

And ever flitting, cheats us to our graves. 

Is human effort thus in vain ? Are all 

The struggles of our lives, our lofty deeds. 
Our glorious conquests, our inflated creeds. 
The grappling, striving of our boundless greeds, 

More powerless than the dew of evening's fall? 

" In vain, in vain !" the preachers moan and cry ; 
Philosophy — that centers all in God, 



A Question 271 

From realms of worlds, to worms upon the sod, 
That counts the life that thrills the unsightly 
clod 
An emanation from the life on high, — 

Divine philosophy with healing wing, 

That broods above us, soothes away our woe, 
And charms and thrills our lives' serenest flow, 
Respondeth thus, "No labor's end we know; 

We judge not well of an unfinished thing." 

In the eternal present, which we bound 
To suit desire and appetite, and mark 
With the same pen that tallies up the cark 
And care of living, from the light to dark, 

And dark to light in ever varying round, — 

In this eternal present God will bring 
To highest uses every noble thought. 
And every work by love's dear fingers wrought; 
We can but trust and wait; our fears are 
nought, 

Life's work is ever an unfinished thing. 



A QUESTION 

Through the changing necromancy 

Of a life's protracted dream. 
Oft we question in the darkness, 

"Are things brighter than they seem? " 

Happy voices, angel voices. 

Thrilling through the deepest gloom, 
Singing that the rose of morning 

Trembles to the perfect bloom ; 



2^3 Morning Clouds 

Singing of the fields of Eden, 

And the lands beyond the stream, 

Tell us, in the dreary watches, 

"Are things brighter than they seem? " 

Does the cloud that bears the sorrow- 
Bear the bow upon its breast ; 

Are the days of storm and battle 
Just preparing days for rest? 

Is the peace the father giveth 
Only waking from a dream, 

As a child wakes in the morning? 

"Are things brighter than they seem ? " 



MORNING CLOUDS 

Clouds of the morning, 

Golden and gay. 
Float from the portals 

Of sunrise away. 

Clouds of the morning. 
In splendor unrolled, 

You usher Aurora, 
In curtains of gold. 

Clouds of the morning, 
Your beauties suggest 

The home of the angels, 
The isles of the blest. 

As Mirza, in vision, 

Beheld your array. 
So I see you afloat. 

Round the portals of day ; 



The Face at the Window 273 

And my vision entranced 

On 3'our glory reclines, 
Till it fades from the sun, 

In your long wav'ring lines; 

Till your long wav'ring lines 

Soften down in the day, 
And you float from the presence 

Of sunrise away. 



THE FACE AT THE WINDOW 

A CHRISTMAS THOUGHT 

A SHRUNKEN form, a motley face, 
Pressed close against the frosty pane, 
And wistful eyes that peer in vain 

Into the warm and smiling place; 

The warm and smiling place within, 
Where happy faces glow^ and greet; 
But she, worn Bedouin of the street, 

Can never come, poor child of sin. 

Poor child of sin, the night and storm 
Shall wrap her in their cold embrace, 
And icy lips shall kiss her face ; 

But we are safe, and we are warm. 

Build high the yule fire, fill the bowl. 
And sing the christ has come again, 
We celebrate his reign with men, 

His saving presence in the soul. 

Now spread the costly presents round 
For those we love; who loves the bad? 
Let all our hearts be free and glad, 

And flutter to the music's sound. 



274 The Face at the Window 

But who shall see, or who shall know, 

The sorrowing- man with cross and crown, 
Go wandering through the giddy town, 

With that poor child of sin and woe? 

Perhaps in some Bacchante's den 

She meets the kindness we withhold, 
A shelter from the biting cold. 

With fallen women, ungodly men. 

Perhaps — but why inquire her fate, 
Who cares for her or where she rests. 
Or what vague anguish tears her breast. 

And taunts her with her vile estate? 

Hail, happy Christmas! hail! again 
The larger Christian faith that tends 
To shape all things for happier ends. 

Most serving God by serving men. 

For who so sinful that his sin 

Proclaims us wardens of his fate, 
Or bids us shut the shining gate 

And cry, he shall not enter in? 

O! most humane when most divine, 
And most divine when most humane. 
The old is still renewed, — the pain. 

The anguish and the cross are thine! 

Who, sleek in satins, white in pearls. 

Or rich with stocks and farms and goods. 
Seeks out the starving multitudes. 

Or whispers hope to fallen girls? 

O ! still as in the elder times. 

Who follows Thee shall know the cross, 
And count all hate and pride as loss, 

And vengeful thoughts as bitter crimes. 



The Face at the Window 275 

Build high the yule fire! why complain 
Of sorrow in the happy earth, 
Give this sweet hour to sinless mirth; 

But oh, the face against the pane! 

Its sad appeal, its mute appeal, 

The wistful gaze, as though she caught, 
With her weak powers, at better thought. 

And fain would rise to heavenly weal. 

O! longing eyes and haggard face, 

O ! rags that wrap the unwashed form, — 
A slim protection from the storm, — 

Begone! nor haunt this cheerful place. 

Now, at the Christmas would we raise 
Full high our virtues, we would frown 
All sinful passions coldly down 

And give to Christ the purest praise. 

But somehow yet the crown of thorns. 
The saddened featui^es we behold. 
Beyond the window in the cold ; 

And while we sing " A million morns 

Shall glow to noon, then fade to night. 
While the Redeemer's glory burns, 
And every heathen nation turns 

To join the cross in glad delight;" 

The sad eyes, weeping, turn away, 

And through the music sounds a voice, 
" Beat on, glad hearts! while you rejoice, 

And night flies swiftly from the day, 

" I go to seek the wandering sheep 
That tremble, just without your door. 
And bear my Christmas to the poor, 

My comfort to the souls that weep." 



276 Ixion 

And so they pass into the night, 

But love has higher meaning caught, 
And we are given to nobler thought, 

And hence shall walk in clearer light. 

Now we are happy, we are warm, 
But could we have it back again, — 
That guilty face against the pane, — 

It should be sheltered from the storm. 

So hail! sweet Christmas, hail! again 
The larger, better faith that tends 
To shape all things for happier ends. 

Most serving God, by serving men! 



IXION 

He can not break the Ophidian thongs. 
His direst struggles are in vain ; 

Swift flies the wheel, — the hissing throngs 
Of writhing horrors mock his pain. 

Grim Pluto views, with mad delight. 
His boundless terror, hopeless grief ; 

What, though the opposing gods unite, 
This is his victim, past relief. 

Round his wild orbit let him rage ; 

Sweep round him, foul, tartarean breath; 
Let these exquisite tortures wage 

Continual death, but bring no death ! 

Fly from thyself, Ixion, fly ! 

Fly from thy hell unto thy hell ! 



Ixion 277 

Thy serpents bind thee, vain thy cry, 
Thy fiends about thy orbit yell! 

But hark ! a strange seraphic note 

Has fallen upon Ixion's ear, 
Like the wild thrill that seems to float 

Through love's enchanted atmosphere. 

The serpent sinks his hooded head, 

The flying wheel has found a rest. 
To lower depths the fiends have fled, 

The air wafts odors from the blest. 

'Tis but a moment, yet his soul 

Laves in the ocean of delight; 
Heaven reigns; Apollo has control; 

Day glances through the caves of night. 

O ! faithful type of our humanity, 

Bound to the ever flying wheel of time. 

By sensuous cordons of insanity. 

And serpent knots of unforgiven crime. 

'Tis only echoes from the higher life. 
The seraph music of the better spheres 

Can still the raging hell of sin and strife. 
And glorify the orbit of our years. 

God's voices, ever musical and sweet. 
Assert themselves in rhythmic altitudes; 

In every strain a poem is complete; 

And blessings flow through all their interludes. 

Let thy waked spirit, like the morning flowers, 
That meet the benisons of light and dew. 

But ope its petals to the heavenly powers. 

And let the music thrill it through and through. 



273 Freedom 

If Orphic warbler intimate the songs, 

Or if from nature's book the lay is trilled, 

Or, if unheard, unseen, unread, it throngs 
The soul, till all its avenues are filled 

With the delights of heaven, the joy is thine; 

Thou reckonest how the seraph notes that dwell 
Within the depths of intellect divine. 

Can ostracize the powers of death and hell. 



FREEDOM 

Freedom singeth in the fountains, 
Shouteth on the lofty mountains 

Whence the avalanches roll; 
Where the songs of birds are ringing. 
Where the summer flowers are swinging 

At the balmy air's control, 
There is freedom ever singing 

Inspirations to the soul. 

Freedom liveth, ever liveth, 

And the fruitful strength it giveth 

Will not, cannot fail nor die. 
Till this world's great moving lever 
That is raising man forever, 

Nearer to the world on high. 
Shall all grievous chains dissever. 

As the years go sweeping by. 

Freedom is the child of heaven. 
Mortal's priceless boon, God-given, 

Deathless as the master soul ; 
All the ministers of evil, 
King nor conqueror nor devil, 



Freedom 279 

Despots that a space control, 

Holding high war's bloody revel, 

As the ages onward roll, — 

Ne'er can make one slave contented 
With the galling chains presented 

For the limbs that God made free; 
Not a people love the master 
Who has given them but disaster. 

Chains and tears and slavery; 
But the world shall move on faster, 

Year by year, to liberty. 

O ! sing praise to God, the giver 
Of this boon that lives forever. 

Nature, with thy perfect voice: 
Sun, that shineth in thy glory. 
Shout aloud its wondrous story 

Till the listening spheres rejoice; 
Till the earth shall evermore be 

Freedom's heritage and choice. 

O ! with marvelous sad yearning. 
All the souls of men keep turning. 

Turning, yearning for the light. 
When from anarchy's long madness, 
Rise the nations up in gladness, 

To proclaim the people's right; 
Then no more to bow in sadness 

To th' oppressor's iron might. 

Not a slave makes vain resistance 
To the curse that gives existence 

But a hell of sorrowing days ; 
Not a panting exile flieth 
But his woe to heaven up-crieth, 

And, through all its devious ways, 



280 An Unclerical Prayer 

Wounded slavery crieth, dieth, 
While the tyrants sing its praise. 

Harken thou, O fellow mortal, 
Sitting at the future's portal, 

To the voices as they flow^, 
How the starry beams that quiver, 
And the swiftly flowing river 

Shout for freedom as they go, 
Then arise! thank God the giver, 

And for Freedom strike the blow. 

1856 



AN UNCLERICAL PRAYER 

Bending downward from thy throne, 
Father, hear thy children cry! 

See the heart-break, list the moan. 

Change our hearts of clay or stone; 

Take us, make us all thine own; 
Father, hear thy children cry! 

Thou, who canst no anger know; 

God of mercy, God of love. 
Let thy blessings outward flow! 
Let thy chikh-en from their woe 
Leap Avith gladness, let them know 

Thou art mercy, thou art love. 

Li the cities' gloom and glare 

Walk the votaries of sin; 
In the hamlets young and fair, 
In the country's pleasant air. 
Spite of fasting, spite of prayer. 

Walk the votaries of sin. 



An Under ical Prayer 281 

Oh! the tinsel and the shame! 

Father, see their nakedness! 
Hear their tongues that breathe thy name, 
Only with some horrid aim. 
Born of alcoholic flame; 

Father, see their nakedness. 

Let persuasive voices ring 

Sweet as that from Calvary, 
Till these frail ones rise and bring, 

In their waked souls blossoming, 
Purer thoughts and deeds that spring 

From the seed of Calvary. 

High and higher up the height, 

Up the bright supernal way, 
Lead the souls that seek the light, 
Let them lean on thee for might, 
Day by day and night by night, 

Up the bright supernal way. 

In the silence soft and sweet, 

Father, let thy presence be ; 
Where the night winds moan and beat 
'Round the hovel, where the street 
Bears its myriad erring feet. 

Father, let thy presence be. 

Turn us from our wickedness. 

Unto peace and love and joy; 
Let us learn to praise and bless 
Him who gives us happiness; 
Lift us from our wretchedness 

Unto peace and love and joy. 

Be our talents great or small. 
Let us in thy kingdom dwell ; 



282 Rain in yune 

Lift us up from every fall; 
Take the wormwood and the gall 
From our lips, and be our all; 
Let us in thy kingdom dwell. 



THE CEMETERY 

Amid the quiet bower of trees, 
The ancient grave-yard lies, 

A silent hamlet on the road 
That leads to paradise. 

Here many weary souls have left 
Their robes of mouldering clay, 

And clad in more ethereal garbs. 
Have journeyed on their way. 

So shall we all go down to dust 
And leave our toils and cares, 

And if we live as well, our rest 
Will be as sweet as theirs. 

1858 



RAIN IN JUNE 

The rain is falling, falling, 

With a constant pattering sound, 

As though it were deftly calling 
New life from the fruitful ground. 

The rain is falling, fallmg. 
Like tears from beauty's eyes. 

And dull gray clouds are walling 
The fields from sun and skies. 



The Poet's Friends 283 

The clouds are flying, flying, 

The Sun will soon be out, 
And nature, fresh from crying, 

Begin to laugh and shout. 

For June is like a maiden 

Of few and joyous years, 
Whose face, with dimples laden, 

Laughs ever through her tears. 

O rain, what bounteous treasures 

Thy cheerful drops shall yield. 
To swell the goodly measures, 

In barn and byre and field! 

The shining woods shall rustle. 

And all the growing grain 
Rise up with shimmer and bustle. 

To greet the pleasant rain. 



THE POET'S FRIENDS 

The poet's friends are leaves and flowers 

That wither, fade and die, 
The bow whose transient splendor comes 

To deck a stormy sky. 

In vain he weaves his lays of love; 

Few echoes they awake; 
They fall back on his heart like snow. 

Distilling flake by flake. 

The cold world views him with a frown, 

And passes on its way ; 
But little childi-en in the streets 

Shall greet him at their play. 



MEGGY MAY 

Playing on the parlor floor, 

With her laughing eyes of blue, 
And her dark locks curling o'er 
Dimpled cheeks of rosy hue. 
Is our little Meggy May, 

Full of joy, with mischief rife. 
Sporting through the sunny day. 
Fearing nought of care and strife. 
Meggy May! Meggy May! 
Drive dull frowning care away, 
While we sing of Meggy May. 

By our darling's side at rest, 

Purrs the kitten loud and gay. 
He that in the happy hours 

Is the partner of her play; 
Now our mischief-loving Meg 

Grasps him rudely by the ear, 
Till .Sir Kitt begins to beg. 
And I have to interfere. 

Meggy May! Meggy May! 
Let the sunlight shine to-day, 
While we sing of Meggy May. 

Now she rises from her place. 
And comes skipping to my knee. 

Gazes upward in my face. 

Laughing in her childish glee. 

Slyly gives my nose a tweak. 
Pleasure dancing in her eyes, 

284 



The Best Interpreter 2S5 

And before I've time to speak, 
Out into the yard she hies. 
Meggy May! Meggy May! 
Let our hearts be light to-day, 
While we sing of Meggy May. 

Now she's chasing the first bee 

I have seen this sunny spring, 
Merry, romping, wild and free, 

She's a happy joyous thing: 
And I own a brother's love 

From my heart doth proudly swell, 
As my eyes incessant rove 

With that little blue-eyed belle. 
Meggy May! Meggy May! 
Lovelier far than nymph or fay. 
Is our little Meggy May. 

Could her life thus ever be. 

Free from sorrow, pain and sin, 
What a blest eternity 

She'd be always dwelling in! 
From an Eden here below 
To a fairer land on high 
Would her happy spirit go. 

When her mortal frame should die. 
Meggy May! Meggy May! 
Let love fill our hearts to-day, 
While we sing of Meggy May. 



18B7 



THE BEST INTERPRETER 

There's a glory in tree and blossom, 
A trill in the wild bird's tone, 

A balm in the Summery breezes. 
That love revealeth, alone. 



NOVEMBER 



IN WAR TIME 



November's cheerless skies of rain 
Are ushering in the winter's gloom, 

And orchard, forest, field and plain, 

Are shorn of greenness, song and bloom. 

No more the sparrow in the bush, 

Nor robin on the maple tree. 
Awakes with song the summer hush 

Of nature's odorous melody. 

All tuneless are the solemn groves. 
Save that the brooklet murmurs on. 

Repeating still its ancient loves, 

As though love's seasons were not gone. 

The year that once, so free and bold. 
Leaped down the glownig hills of life. 

Dwarfs his bent form beneath the cold. 
And shivers in the wild wind's strife. 

On beating wings the raven flits, 
A ghost of darkness and despair; 

Far in the wood the great owl sits 
And pours his horror on the air. 

A mist obscures the dreary town, 
The streets are silent lines of gloom. 

And the lone footman's garb of brown 
Seems woven in death's fated loom. 

286 



November 287 

The wild war rages, doubt and grief 
Are in the land from sea to sea, 

Till peace seems like some lost belief 
We cherished in our infancy. 

But even now, with healing wing, 
Hope rides in battle's sulphurous car; 

And melodies that angels sing 
Are heard in lapses of the war. 

Spring comes, and summer follows soon; 

Earth leaps from out the winter's thrall 
Into the laps of May and June, 

That spread their mantles over all. 

So liberty and peace shall rise 

From under desolation's hoof; 
Now faintly through her mournful skies. 

Smiles grim November with the proof. 



When life goes trembling down the hill, 
In some November far away, 

And gath'ring clouds of boding ill 
Obscure the shining light of day, 

O! may the solemn scene command 
Some blessing for the great unknown; 

Some staff whereon the dying hand 
May rest before its strength be gone. 

Some ray to penetrate the gloom, 
To bathe the sombre hills in light, 

Shed its soft splendor on the tomb. 
And glorify the awful night. 



288 Whittier 

Some melody of melodies, 

To sound across the dismal sea, 

With soft and vibrant harmonies, 
To blend with purer harmony. 

While loved ones that have gone before 
Lean downw^ard in their robes of gold, 

And give, in love's seraphic lore 

Their rapturous vs^elcomes manifold! — 

Their rapturous w^elcomes manifold. 
Until the soul forsakes its clay; 

Leaps upward from the cumb'ring mold; 
Death yields to life, and night to day. 



• WHITTIER 

All honor to the sons of song, 

Whose fiery strains, or lays of love. 

Have flamed about the tyrant throng 
Or taught the slave to look above! 

To Ayrshire's plowman bard, w^ho saw 
The man uprising over caste ; 

To Whittier, preaching higher law. 
That glorious lesson from the past; 

That mighty past in which there stood 
A man, a god, where, fresh and cool, 

The breeze was in the mountain wood. 
And taught mankind the Golden Rule. 

Brave champion of the deathless right ; 

To thee, great Whittier, belong 
The honors of a moral knight. 

Who wieldeth well his blade of song. 



The Brook 289 

Who tempers every stroke with love, 
With mercy sweetens every thrust, 

Points every dying wretch above 

And lifts the trampled from the dust. 

Such song as thine, so sweet, so pure. 
So warm with freedom's holy flame, 

Must with the living things endure, 
A spotless legacy to fame. 

Beat on, great heart, and pour thy tide 
Of song along this stricken land, 

Till avarice, lust, and despot pride 

No more on bleeding hearts shall stand. 

1858 



THE BROOK 

Cheerful, sunny brooklet, 

Laugh along thy way, 
'Mid the wild, sweet roses, 

Neath the willow spray. 
Singing to the lilies 

Nodding on thy rim; 
Little brook, I thank thee 

For thy happy hymn. 

Thus, upon life's journey 

As I toil along. 
May my griefs be lightened 

By the gift of song. 
And the soul-flowers, blooming 

By my onward way, 
Yield their sweetest fragrance, 

For each love-taught lay. 



190 The Poet 

Merry little brooklet, 

Flowing to the sea, 
I, too, seek the ocean 

Named eternity. 
Sinless and rejoicing 

Would that I, like thee, 
Might go singing onward 

To my parent sea. 



THE POET 

The poet rose and passed beneath the eaves 
Whence hung a thousand icy lances down 
To glow and glitter in the morning beams; 
And when he saw the sun of Christmas rise, 
Wandered a-singing thro' the little town; 
And all the good folks wondered at his songs. 
And said, " Alas! his mind is lost, is lost; 
Poor crazy wight, he'll perish in the cold." 
The rabble followed, jeering as they went, 
And pelting him with balls of gathered snow; 
But still he smiled and shook his raven curls, 
And sang the good old songs of merry yule,— 
Sang of the infant Christ in manger laid, 
And of the star that glorified the East 
Upon the morn of His nativity ; 
Sang of the good St. Nicholas and his gifts 
To all the happy children in the world. 
But still they jeered and pelted, so he turned 
Full face upon the idle vagabonds, 
And cried aloud in most discordant tones, 
" Now here's for vice and sin and ignorance. 
And boorish actions and brutality ! 
A song that I shall sing for you and yours. 
For I perceive your drift and wish your praise 



Isadorc 291 

And your good will;" and so the song began, 

The song that echoed to the very life 

The aspirations of the vulgar crowd. 

They paused a moment, heard their meanness 

take 
The form of words, and knew their very thoughts 
In the harsh music; so they turned and fled, 
Fled from themselves, and all the good folks cried, 
" The poet is most wise; a throne! a throne! 
Build him a throne and let him sing for us 
Through all the coming days;" but he passed on; 
And there each Christmas time they think of him, 
And drink his health at many a steaming board. 



ISADORE 

Purest souls sometimes are given 
Into forms of slightest mould, — 

Spirits that belong to heaven 
As the lambkin to the fold, 

That no earthly love can stay. 

From their native shore away. 

Spirits very meek and lowly, 
Such as, in the days to come, 

Singing praises to the holy 
In some glad millennium, 

Then shall tread the earth alone 

Till a thousand years are gone. 

Such a soul of rarest beauty 
O, sweet Isadore, was thine, 

As along the path of duty 

Trode thy presence half divine, 

Till a shadow, dark and bold, 

Smote thee, and thy heart grew cold. 



292 The Songs of Birds 

Thou didst perish Hke the blossoms, 
In the sad November rain, 

And we carry in our bosoms 
Evermore regret and pain, 

Surging like the winds that rave 

Nightly o'er thy little grave. 



THE SONGS OF BIRDS 



The birds of morning rise and shake 
The music from their souls again; 
I hear them in the tangled brake; 

They warble down the shadowy glen; 
And still to me 
They seem to be 
Forever fluting out the call 
" Come up! come up! 
The royal feast 
Is spread for man and bu'd and beast, 
With peace on earth, good will to all." 



II 



The larks fly to th' advancing sun. 
The robins twitter on the tree. 

And all the small birds raise, as one, 
Their piping trebles of harmony. 

And when the noisy day is done. 
The whippowil's sadder melody, 

From willowy thickets, far or near, 



Anabel 293 

Resounds through garden, grove and hall ; 
And still to me 
They seem to be 
Forever fluting out the call 
" Come up ! coriie up ! 
The royal feast 
Is spread for man and bird and beast, 
With peace on earth, good will to all." 



ANABEL 

Comes my heart with grief o'erladen, 

Bringing offerings to thee; 
O! thou bright angelic maiden, 
Who in far-off spirit Aidenn, 

Sin and strife and sorrow free, 
Dwelleth now in joy forever 

Where the power of death is o'er, 
And no poisonous breath shall sever 
Those who live and love forever, 

On that undiscovered shore. 



But grim sorrow sitteth, dwelling 

In this, weary heart for thee, 
Whence affection came upwelling 
All its truth forever telling. 

Telling its sincerity: 
Truth we felt in days of olden 
When our sun was shinmg golden. 

And we thought us truly blest, 
In those happy days of olden, 

Ei'e thy spirit neared its rest. 



294 The Toilei-'s Dream 

But I'm thinking of a meeting, 

Yet another one with thee, 
When the years have ceased their fleeting; 
And I'm thinking of the greeting 

That thou then wilt give to me. 

1854 



THE TOILER'S DREAM 

The toiler slept a long, uneasy sleep. 
And in the midst thereof, a vision rose — 
A dream about a dream that filled his brain: 
He thought he woke, and on his wife and boys 
Gazed with a tender yearning at his heart. 
Then quickly turning to the uncurtained pane 
Saw Venus glowing with a ti'emulous light 
Half sunken in the rosy sea of dawn; 
Then rose, and putting on his raiment, passed. 
Beneath his humble door-tree, sped across 
Great plains of red-top, shining in the dew 
Like roses steeped in nectar, fields of wheat. 
Whose slender lances in the crispy air 
Tossed like the streamers which we see on ships 
Sailing in favoring breezes from their ports; 
Beneath the elm- trees, where the robins sang 
Their joyous praises to the advancing sun; 
Across the orchards, where the cat-bird's mirth. 
In garrulous c{uavers, shook the infant fruit; 
And over rocky hill and flowery dale; 
And on, and on, and still the wonder grew — 
A sea of glory in the shining East — 
Till all his soul, enamored of the scene. 
Shouted, in unison with brooks and birds; 
And all the growing dawn beheld a race 
Of happy men where justice held aloft 



The Toiler''s Dream 295 

Her polished scale, that wavered with a breath ; 
And none were found to cheat the balance, none 
To wring the sweat of blood from weary brows, 
And none were beggars, none were lords, but all 
Bore burdens for each other, and the wealth 
They made, outmeasuring individual needs, 
Wrought works of art and towers for learning's 

use. 
And builded airy halls in pleasant parks 
Wherein the people at their leisure came 
To read the masters of philosophy. 
To search the lettered scrolls of history through. 
Or mark the unlettered legends of the rocks, 
With all their marvelous stories of the past. 
That, antedating continents and man, 
Recall the life of the primordial seas; 
Turn amateurs in science and produce 
The wonders of the retort ; analyze 
All forms of use or beauty into gas 
As thin as rhymes for formal holidays; 
Turn the great telescopes to heaven and count 
The worlds on worlds and weigh them one by one ; 
Look through the microscopes and there behold 
The infusorial myriads of the air 
And earth and water, and all things therein; 
And chasing science thus to suit the will. 
Each following that which yielded most delight. 
The range of knowledge grew from more to 

more: 
Some viewed the wonders on the chiseled stone. 
Wrought by the Angelos of every town; 
Or on the canvas saw the raptures grown 
Beneath the touch of Raphaels numbered not. 
Except by needs of the communities 
Of cultured souls that filled the teeming world; 
Or on a million pages traced the flow 
Of poesy, that tempts the heights sublime. 



296 The Toilcr''s Dream 

And echoes faintly to the car of clay 

The infinite murmurs of diviner thought; 

Or, when of learning weary, they would chase 

The flying ball across the park, or swim 

In the luxurious mazes of the dance, 

Or, in gymnasiums well appointed, train 

Each nerve and muscle to the highest use; 

Pitch the huge quoit, or toil upon the bars, 

Or ply the oars upon the river's breast. 

Or linger where the heavenly strains outpour 

From instruments of perfect form and tone; 

Or wander singing through the pleasant woods 

Where myriad feathered warblers congregate. 

And when returning from a day of rest 

To quiet homes that nestled in the groves, 

They met the household with a love that made 

The very roof-trees blossom into joys. 

And all the world a paradise of peace. 

How happily their thanks went forth to God ; 

How sweet they rested, and with morning rose 

To toil, and know that best results are sure 

From every stroke of hammer on the steel, 

Or furrow cut across the pleasant fields. 

Or rush of throbbing engines, spread of sails 

That catch the breezes on a thousand seas; 

The whir of spindles and the clank of looms. 

The nervous strokes of telegraphs that bear 

The thought of continent to continent. 

The labors of the builders, and of all 

Who build up cities, make the country smile. 

Train nature up to uses best for man. 

The sun awoke him, shining through the panes 

(3n the bare walls and meagre couch of straw; 

And so, the vision past, his toil began 

Upon a stately pile of stone that grew 

On labor poorly paid, in bounty wrung 

From other toilers b}- the sharper's art. 



Ever 297 

A mansion fit for princes of the mind, 
Kings in the empire of triumphant souls; 
liut yet, a trihute raised by trembhng hands 
To lying impudenee and brazen cheek. 
And vulgar meanness that but shun the law's 
Just penalties, and keep within the range 
Of human decencies, by that small breadth 
That people always recognize between 
A rogue convicted and a rogue at large. 

So ran the dream, and so it faded out; 

Yet all the world is beautiful and fair, 

And all the souls are nearest God, that dream 

Of happy futures when the earth shall move, 

And all the universe of man revolve 

In one wide orbit circling all delights. 

And every man shall yield his brother man 

The good he claims himself; and right shall be 

The Lord and Master over all that live. 



EVER 

Ever strive and ever labor, 

Fainting not at all ! 
Let endurance be thy watchword. 

Though thy strength be small. 

Small the strength to each that's given, 

Yet sufficient still 
To upbear the dauntless spirit 
Over every ill. 

What though calumny traduce thee ? 

Scorn the idle jade ! 
Ever true to thy convictions. 

Stand, nor be afraid. 



29S Ever 

Let the poor time-serving trembler 
Vaunt his hollow creed ; 

He would, like the storied Levite, 
Let the stranger bleed ; 

Or, with temporizing tactics, 

Raise the Jewish cry 
(. )f " Release to us Barabbas, 

But let Jesus die." 

Does thy heart beat high for freedom, 

And for the opprest — 
O ! let not its warm pulsations 

Slumber in thy bieast. 

Truth demands that thou shouldst utter 

Every noble thought, 
Though it hedge thy path with sorrow, 

Bring thy name to naught. 

There is nothing true and noble. 
There is naught sublime, 

But imparts a heavenly music 
To the keys of time. 

Through the ever-widening cycles 

Of unending years, 
Lives and grows the better mfluence 

That was born in tears. 

Hard it seems to work for others 

By the midnight oil. 
And receive but jeers and curses 

For your patient toil. 

Hard to publish truths unwelcome 

To the public mind, 
And be left to feed in sorrow 

On truth's bitter rind. 



Ever 299 

Did the old disciples falter, 

When the offended kings 
Cast them to the hungry lions 

In their steaming rings ? 

And shall he who dares to suffer 

For the right to-day, 
Not receive his meed of glory, 

Just as well as they ? 

Truth has gospels unaccepted, 

Calvaries yet to climb. 
Crosses to be borne whose shadows 

Shall outmeasure time. 

Strike for right with zeal, but never 

Deal in random blows ; 
Being very sure 'tis evil 

That thou dost oppose. 

Then with arms like Scandinavian 

Thor, or Tubal Cain, 
Ply the hammer on old Error's 

Rough, unyielding grain. 

Or if but an humble singer, 

Tune thy slender songs ; 
They are drops whose small erosions 

Wear the flinty wrongs. 

Battle on! and God's approval, 

Nerving heart and will, 
Shall upbear thy hero spirit, 

Over every ill, 

1857 



FOR THE DYING YEAR 

TiiH vcar is growing- oKl aiul gray; 

So am I : — 
And I hear the night winds say, 

'" Let him die! 

" Let the trembling dotard go 
To his rest : 
He has lost his wits, and so 
Death is best." 

How we loved him in his prime, 

Love him still! 
Hilt his heartless father. Time, 

Works him ill. 

He who gave him life ami joy, 

And a crown, 
Now, in madness to destroy, 

Cuts him down. 

Unto thee, O dving vear! 

Do we owe 
Other tribute t han a tear 

For thv woe? 

Thou hast given us much of grief, 

^luch of peace ; 
Opening blossom, ripening leaf, — 

Love's increase. 

300 



For the Dying Tear 301 

Now thy harvests' stubbles stand 

In the snow, 
And thy weak and trembling hand 

Ilangeth low. 

Take, O Gray beard, to thy rest 

Blessings three. 
Given in love, for love is best 

Endlessly. 

One to shrive thy soul, and one 

For thy fame. 
Still to glow when days are done 

With thy name. 

One with all our gladness glad; 

With our grief 
Eloquently, wildly sad. 

Past belief. 

Twelve short songs, in many a key, 

Quivering by. 
Birth, and hope, and destiny 

Laugh and sigh; 

Bridal gladness, funeral train. 

Bud and bloom, 
Seed-time, harvest, sun and rain. 

Winter's gloom ; 

Young ambition, trembling age. 

Child at play, 
vStudent bent above the page, 

Power's decay; 

All so wrought to one grand tlieme. 

They shall run 
Onward, as some wand'ring stream. 

Here in sun. 



502 For the Dying Tear 

There in shadow, making still 

Pictures fair, 
While its varied murmurs till 

All the air; 

Till where thou art lying low. 

White and cold, 
All thy days shall come and go 

As of old, 

Singing, sighing by thy bed, 

Fallen year; 
So that even among thy dead 

Thou shalt hear! 

See! the fagot's blaze is low; 

Hear the bell ! 
Thou art fading, ah! I know 

'Tis thy knell! 



Rise from dreams; the King is dead; 

Hail the King! 
Bind the laurel round his head ; 

Shout and sing! 

He shall strut his little day 

On the stage; 
To life's grief and passion i^lay 

Add a page. 

Breaking hearts and mending crowns 

He shall come; 
Clothing some in silken gowns; 

In tatters, some, — 

Then shall seek oblivion's vale 

Like the old. 
When one more twelve-chaptered tale 

Has been told. 



For the Dying Tear 303 

Keep us, Father, in Thy hand, 

Thine alone; 
Years may drift like grains of sand 

Tempest-sown. 

But within Thy guardian care 

We may dwell 
Safely in the here or there — 

All is well! 



/ 



INDEX OF FIRST LINES 



INDEX OF FIRST LINES 

PAGB 

Across the snow and over the sand m 

A flood there is that flows and falls 139 

Ah, blessed son ! thy sleep no dangers mar 1 . . . 67 

All along the winding river 247 

All honor to the sons of song 288 

All purple and gold are the leaves on the trees . . 217 

Aloft, in flowing garb, she stood 226 

Amid all scenes of pleasure voices fall .... 47 

Amid the quiet bower of trees 282 

Amist of white laces 120 

And is the grief that haunts with endless moan . . . 270 

And so you say that Billy's dead 187 

As a sheaf that is fully ripened the Reaper .... 189 

A shrunken form, a motley face 273 

A simple rhyme, a childish grief 59 

A smihng face, a dimpled chin 50 

A thrill of something seeming half divine .... 46 

A tiny rill and a little child 241 

A white 'kerchief shaken aloft 43 

Backward gazing through the shadows .... 13 

Bending downward from thy throne ...... 280 

Beside the rill that hurries down 81 

Be silent, speech, and hushed the noise of drums . . 162 

Blow, oh, blow the merry bugle ! 83 

Brave defenders of our Union 166 

By the border of a woodland 209 

Cheerful, sunny brooklet 289 

Children together we romp and play .... 223 

Claribell 256 

Clouds of the morning 272 

Comesmy heart with grief o'er laden 293 

Dear Penina, I've been thinking 201 

Despise not the art loS 

Die away, O evening wonder 26^^ 

307 



3o8 



Index of First Lines 



Ever strive and ever labor 



897 



Fair comrades, do not chide me . . 
Farewell, darling strawberiy .... 
Far over the regions of sorrow , 
Fathers and mothers of our native land 
For her who died so young and wondrous fair 
For you who love the sea and the green woods 
Freedom singeth in the fountains 

Give gracious gifts to your children 
Gold and scarlet, dry and brown . . 
Good morning to Nellie I . . . 



" Hail and farewell ! " we meet and part . 

Ha! my laughing violet 

Heah dat old camp meetin' hawn 

He cannot break the Ophidan thongs . 

Here is the grave ! . ... 

He was a poet, and his prophet eyes 

He went on a summer vacation 

His form is bent, his head is gray . 

How many friends have died since we 

If turkey failed and beef was tough 

I had a dream of other days 

I hear the ringing of the bells, the bells 

I hold that he who touches one glad string 

I hold within the hollow of my hand 

In vain were our prayers and our tears . 

I recognize your able plea 

I sit and I sing 



Jennie's head was proud and queenly . 

Lay your cold hand in my warm hand 
Level silence on the landscapes . . . 
Lightly dip the slender oar 
Long ago ! where the ranks of maple trees . 
Look on this statue, standing dark and bold 
Love me little, love me long . 



No more with tears I count the years 
Not his to sound the Attic shell . 
November's cheerless skies of rain . 



Now once again on field and hill 146 



Index of First Lines 



309 



Now the ardent sun advances . . . . 

01 buds may break in scarlet bloom , 

Oft have I walked, when mom was on the land 

Oh, mountain monarchs of the mighty west 

Oh ! sing the funeral roundelay .... 

Oh, weep for him, ye ever moaning pines ! . 

O mother, in that blessed clime 

O night, upon thy myriad streaming wings . 

O poet! prone to woods and fishes . 

O, singing wind ! O, lingering wind 

Ould Paddy Fitz Morris 

O Urania, I whisper thy name with a sigh . 
Out in the cheery breath of mom 
Out of the deepest sorrow .... 
O wild, sweet note ! again 1 see 



Peace ! gentle goddess, sleep is on the shore 
Playing on the parlor floor 
" Please, mama's sick an' we got no bread 
Poor bleeding feet ! It seems but yesterday 
Purest souls sometimes are given . 

Raise again the patriot song 

She was not made for sorrow 



Tarry with us, joyful hour .... 

Tell me, O warbler, why the dying day 

The air is rich with summer bloom . 

The birds of morning rise and shake . 

The bloom of his manhood 

The bright magnolia spreads its bloom 

The hills are all shrouded in mantles of sno 

The man who lies dead at McGregor . 

The many voices of the noisy day , 

The mom is past, the afternoon . 

The mother standeth nearer to the child . 

The odor songs that blossoms sing 

The poet rose and passed beneath the eaves 

The poet's friends are leaves and flowers 

The ragged firs, knee deep in snow . 

The rain is falling, falling . . . 

There is a light along the west . 

There is no comfort in an idle word 



77 

142 

45 
172 

159 
170 
188 
130 
199 

133 
22s 

35 
258 
261 

51 

46 
284 
224 

75 
agi 

190 

55 

54 

108 

123 

292 

194 

22 

89 

167 

17s 

38 

73 

"5 

290 

283 

141 

282 

13a 

179 



3IO Index of First Lines 

There is Winter on the mere 125 

There's a bird that stays with us the whole winter long . 41 

There's a calm and pallidt ace 91 

There's a glory in tree and blossom 285 

The South has a balmier breath 152 

The spring came laughing down the way .... 58 

The summer is dying, the days shorter growing . . 109 

The sun arose, the mom was grand ..... 95 

The tide of being moveth now 260 

The toiler slept a long, uneasy sleep 294 

The voice is hushed, the heart is still .... 161 

The year is growing old and gray 300 

They kissed beneath the mistletoe 5i 

They say that Longfellow is dead 168 

Through the changing necromancy 271 

To him who toileth in the afternoon 93 

'Twas a glorious eve in Autumn .... 47 

'Twas Christmas when the widow came .... 249 

Two little faces, cheerful and bright 124 

We knew in the night when the moon was on high . . 144 

Well, Johnny, my boy ! How's your debts? . . . 220 

We walked upon the terrace high 216 

When I cum fum Alabama 231 

When the soul's scepter falleth from the hand ... 44 

When young Apollo, from the heavens cast down . . 40 

Who cometh with perfect art 53 

" Whoop, la, whoop, tra, la, la, la! " .... 219 

Winter rules the world without 263 

Yesterday I was twenty, the world was in roses . . 63 

■You asked me, dear friend, in the fair month of roses , 239 



